- 
 
 : 
 
 
 • ' '. '. '. *. •» '. s » i ■ 
 ::::::::; : : 
 
 ; 
 
 . 
 
 , ■ • 
 
 
38.2 
 
 
 Columbia (MnitierjSitp 
 
 intl)fCttptf3frttJg0rk 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 , 
 
 S * B 
 
 u, 
 
 V- 
 
 O <&<3C; 
 
LIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LORD CHANCELLORS 
 
 AND 
 
 KEEPERS OF THE GREAT SEAL 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND, 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TILL THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE IV 
 
 By JOHN LOED CAMPBELL, LL.D., F.B.S.E. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 IN TEN VOLUMES.— Vol. IV. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1868. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved. 
 
i sr/ 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FOUETH VOLUME. 
 
 Chap. Paob 
 
 LXXTV. — LlFE OF LOED ChANCELLOB CLARENDON FROM HIS 
 
 BERTH TILL THE EXECUTION OF LOED StBAFFOBD 2 
 
 LXXY. — Continuation of the Life of Lobd Clabendon 
 till he was sent to beistol v.ith the chabge 
 of Prince Chaeles 16 
 
 LXXVL — Continuation of the Life of Lord Clarendon 
 
 TILL HIS BETURN FROM THE EMBASSY TO MaDBID . . 30 
 
 LXXYII. — Continuation of the Life of Clabendon till 
 the grbeat seal was deliyebed to him at 
 Beuges 45 
 
 LXXVIII. — Continuation of the Life of Clabendon till 
 
 THE BESTOBATION OF CHAELES II 58 
 
 LXXIX. — Continuation of the Life of Lobd Clabendon 
 
 TILL THE MEETING OF THE FIBST PABLIAMENT OF 
 
 Chables II 68 
 
 L XXX . — Continuation of the Life of Lobd Clabendon 
 till his acquittal when impeached by the 
 Eabl of Bbistol 83 
 
 LXXXI. — Continuation of the Life of Lobd Clarendon 
 
 TILL H53 FALL 95 
 
 LXXXTI. — Continuation of the Life of Lobd Clabendon 
 
 IILL HIS BANL6H2UMJT 108 
 
iv CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 
 LXXXII '.. — Conclusion of the Life of Lord Clarendon . . 120 
 
 LXXXTY. — Life of Loed Keeper Bridgeman 139 
 
 LXXXY. — Life of Loed Chancellor Shaftesbttey from his 
 
 bieth till the restoration of Charles II. .. 154 
 
 LXXXVI. — Continuation of the Life of Loed Shaftesbttey 
 
 TILL HIS APPOINTMENT AS LOED CHANCELLOE .. 167 
 
 LXXXYII. — Continuation of the Life of Loed Shaftesbttey 
 till his dismissal from the office of loed 
 Chancellor 172 
 
 LXXXVLTI. — Continuation of the Life of Loed Shaftesbttey 
 
 TILL THE BREAKING OTTT OF THE POPISH PLOT . . 185 
 
 LXXXTX. — Continuation of the Life of Loed Shaftesbury 
 
 TILL THE DISSOLUTION OF THE OXFORD PARLIA- 
 MENT 197 
 
 XC — Conclusion of the Life of Lord Shaftesbury.. 219 
 XCI. — Life of Lord Chancellor Nottingham from his 
 
 BIRTH TILL HE WAS CEEATED LOED CHANCELLOR.. 236 
 
 XCII. — Continuation of the Life of Loed Nottingham 
 
 TILL HIS FIRST QUARREL WITH LOED SHAFTESBUEY 247 
 
 XCIII. — Conclusion of the Life of Lord Nottingham .. 262 
 XCIV. — Life of Lord Keeper Guilford from his birth 
 
 TILL HE WAS APPOINTED SOLICITOE- GENERAL .. 280 
 
 XCY. — Continuation of the Life of Lord Guilford till 
 
 HIS APPOINTMENT AS LORD KEEPER 292 
 
 XCVL — Continuation of the Life of Lord Guilford till 
 
 THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 312 
 
 XCYII. — Conclusion of the Life of Lord Guilford .. 326 
 XCVIII. — Life of Lord Chancellor Jeffreys feom his 
 
 BIRTH TILL HE WAS APPOINTED ReCOEDER OP 
 
 London 338 
 
CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. V 
 
 Chap. Pagi 
 
 XCIX. — Continuation of the Life of Lord Chancellor 
 Jeffreys till his appointment as Lord Chief 
 Justice of the King's Bench 352 
 
 C. — Continuation of the Life of Lord Chancellor 
 
 Jeffreys till he received the Great Seal .. 368 
 
 CI. — Continuation of the Life of Lord Chancellor 
 Jeffreys till the Great Seal was taken from 
 him by James II. and thrown into the riyer 
 Thames 388 
 
 CII. — Conclusion of the Life of Lord Chancellor 
 
 Jeffreys 40£ 
 
 VOL. J* 
 

 
 LIVE S 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LOED CHANCELLORS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE 
 EXECUTION OF LORD STRAFFORD. 
 
 I now enter upon a task of great difficulty — embarrassed not 
 by the scantiness, but by the superfluity of nry materials. 
 
 " Iuopem me copia fecit." 
 
 The subject of this memoir was personally concerned in 
 many of the most important events which marked the thirty 
 most interesting years to be found in our annals ; by his own 
 voluminous writings, and those of his contemporaries, we are 
 amply informed of all he did, and said, and thought ; and more 
 praise and censure have been unduly lavished upon him than 
 perhaps on any other public man who ever appeared in 
 England. But striving to condense, and keeping in view 
 the just boundaries of biography and history, I must not 
 omit any statement or observations which I may deem ne- 
 cessary to convey an adequate notion of his career and of his 
 character. 
 
 Edward Hyde was of a respectable gentleman's family, 
 which for centuries had been settled in the county of Chester, 
 and, in Scottish phrase, had been " Hydes of that ilk," being 
 possessed of an estate by the name of which they were desig- 
 nated when surnames came into fashion. Lawrence, his 
 grandfather, a cadet of this family, migrated into the West, 
 and established himself at Dinton, in the county of Wilts. 
 tt—^. - e Chancellors father, studied the law in the Middle 
 
 VOL. IV. B 
 
2 LOUD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON Jhap. LXXIV. 
 
 Temple, but marrying a Wiltshire lady " of a good fortune, in 
 the account of that age:," he became a country squire after having 
 travelled through Germany and Italy. He sat in several par- 
 liaments ; but having neither hope of Court preferment, nor 
 ambition to complain of grievances, he resolved to devote 
 the remainder of his days to country pursuits and pleasures. 
 " From the death of Queen Elizabeth he never was in London, 
 though he lived above thirty years after ; and his wife, who 
 was married to him abo v'e forty years, never was in London in 
 her life ; the wisdom and frugality of that time being such, 
 that few gentlemen made journeys to London, or any other 
 expensive journeys, but upon important business, and their 
 wives never ; by which they enjoyed and improved their estates 
 in the country, and kept great hospitality in their houses, 
 brought up their children well, and were beloved by their 
 neighbours." a 
 
 The Chancellor was born at Dinton on the 1 8th of February, 
 1609. He received his early classical education under 
 the paternal roof from the vicar of the parish, who, 
 " though of very indifferent parts, had bred good scholars;" 
 but he was chiefly grateful to "the superintending care and 
 conversation of his father, who was an excellent scholar, and 
 took pleasure in conferring with him." 
 
 In his fourteenth year he was sent to the University of Ox- 
 ford, and admitted of Magdalen Hall. Being then a younger 
 son, he was intended for holy orders ; but he did not make 
 much progress in theological studies, and having taken his 
 Bachelor's degree in February, 1626, he quitted the University 
 " rather with the opinion of a young man of parts and preg- 
 nancy of wit, than that he had improved it much by in- 
 dustry." b 
 
 About this time his elder brother died, and he was entered 
 1625 a student of law in the Middle Temple, under the 
 care of his uncle, Sir Nicholas, afterwards Chief 
 Justice of the King's Bench, then Treasurer of that Society. 
 
 But his studies were seriously interrupted, first, by the 
 plague which raged for some months in London, and then by 
 a lingering attack of ague when he had retreated into the 
 country. It was Michaelmas term, 1626, before he was able 
 to establish himself regularly in chambers. He confesses that 
 he had contracted a habit of idleness and of desultory reading, 
 and that, when he returned, " it was without great application 
 
 ■ Life of Clarendon, 1. 6. b Ibid. 8. 
 
A.P. 1028. HIS EDUCATION AND FIRST MARRIAGE. 3 
 
 to the study of the law for some years. 1 ' He now spent most 
 of his time with " swash bucklers" and discharged, military 
 officers who had fought in Germany and the Low Countries, 
 accompanying them to fencing-schools, ordinaries, and theatres. 
 But he assures us that his morals were not contaminated by 
 these dangerous associates ; and this being so, he seems rather 
 to have reflected with satisfaction on the opportunity he then 
 improved of acquiring a knowledge of men and manners. He 
 says, "that since it pleased God to preserve him whilst he 
 did keep that company, and to withdraw him so soon from it, 
 he was not sorry he had some experience in the conversation 
 of such men, and of the licence of those times," — adding, with 
 considerable felicity, " that he had more cause to be terrified 
 upon the reflection than the man who had viewed Eochester 
 Bridge in the morning that it was broken, and which he had 
 galloped over in the night." c He was fond of literature, and 
 he employed several hours each day in reading ; but he would 
 utterly have neglected Plowden and Coke, which then showed 
 the newest fashions of the law, if it had not been for his uncle, 
 Sir Nicholas, who questioned him about the "moots "he at- 
 tended, and often " put cases " for his opinion. But natural 
 disposition, or the prospect of succeeding to a comfortable 
 patrimony, still made him affect the company of the gay and 
 the dissolute. 
 
 In the summer of 1628, the old Chief Justice, with a view 
 of compelling him to mix with lawyers, appointed him to 
 " ride " the Norfolk circuit as .his Marshal. Unfortunately at 
 Cambridge, the first assize town, he was attacked by the 
 smallpox, and he was so ill that his life was despaired of; but 
 at the end of a month he was able to proceed to his father's in 
 Wiltshire. 
 
 Soon after the recovery of his health, a circumstance oc- 
 curred which gave a new turn to his views and his character. 
 He fell desperately in love with a Wiltshire beauty, the 
 daughter of iSir George Ayliffe, a young lady with no fortune, 
 though of good family and high connections. His indulgent 
 father consented to their union. He thus became allied to 
 the Marquess of Hamilton, and " was introduced into another 
 way of conversation than he had formerly been accustomed 
 to, and which, in "truth, by the acquaintance, by the friends 
 
 Life, i. 10. In his old age he bestows serve himself from any notable scandal ol 
 this qualified commendation on this passage any kind, and to live caute if not caste." — Life, 
 of his youth, that "he was desirous to pre- iii. 97-t. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIV 
 
 and enemies he then made, had an influence upon the whole 
 course of his life afterwards." d But his domestic happiness 
 came to a sudden termination. In little more than six months 
 after his marriage, his young wife, in a journey from London 
 into Wiltshire, caught the malignant smallpox and died. 
 When he was sensible of the loss he had sustained, he was so 
 overwhelmed with grief that he could hardly be restrained by 
 his father from resigning his profession, and seeking seclusion 
 in a foreign land. 
 
 He remained a widower near three years, the greater part 
 of which time he devoted to books, but neither then, nor at 
 any period of his life, did he attend veiy seriously to the study 
 of the law, — with the technicalities of which he was never 
 familiar. He continued to cultivate the high-born relatives of 
 his late wife, and he made acquaintance with Ben Jonson, 6 " 
 Cotton, Isaac Walton, May, Carew, Edmund Waller, Sir , 
 Kenelm Digby, and Chillingworth. His manners were more 
 polished and agreeable than those of most lawyers, and he was 
 kindly noticed, not only by Lord Keeper Coventry, but by the 
 Earl of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal, the Earl of Pembroke, 
 Lord Chamberlain, the Earls of Holland, Hereford, and Essex, 
 and others of great consequence about the Court. His regard 
 for the members of his own profession he chiefly confined to 
 Lane, Attorney-General to the Prince, and afterwards Lord 
 Keeper, Sir Jeffrey Palmer, then a rising conveyancer, after- 
 wards Attomev-General to Charles II., and Bulstrode \\ hite- 
 lock, then getting into the lead on the Oxford circuit, after- 
 wards Lord Keeper to the Commonwealth, — with all whom 
 he was at this time on a footing of the most friendly inter- 
 course, although their courses were afterwards so devious/ 
 But the man with whom, he tells us, he had the most entire 
 friendship, and of whom he speaks in terms of the warmest 
 admiration and affection, was Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, — 
 in all whose sentiments he continued ever heartily to concur, 
 till this bright ornament of his country fell in the battle of 
 Xewbury. 
 
 d Life, i. 18. all acquainted with the writings of Shak- 
 
 e *' He (Ben Jonson) had for many years epeare. 
 an extraordinary kindness for Mr. Hyde, till f In Whitelock's Memorials we have an 
 
 he found he betook himself to business, which amusing extract of a letter addressed to him 
 
 he believed ought never to be preferred be- in the country, from Hyde in the Temple : 
 
 fore his company." — Life, i. 30. Hyde pre- " Our best news is that we have good wine 
 
 ferred Ben to all poets, living or dead, except abundantly come over; and the worst, thai 
 
 Cew'.ey but does not seem to have been at the plague is in town, and no Judges He." 
 
A.D. 1632. HIS SECOND MARRIAGE— DEATH OF HIS FATHER. 5 
 
 Hyde having recovered his spirits, again entered the mar 
 ried state, and formed a most auspicious union, which 
 proved the great solace of his life. The lady was 
 Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Master of the 
 Mint. Having been his companion in all the vicissitudes of 
 his fortune, — having lived with him in exile, sharing in his 
 dangers and privations, and with difficulty providing food and 
 raiment for their children, — she was preserved to see him 
 Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, and Prime Minister of 
 England. 
 
 His happiness was in a few months interrupted by the 
 sudden death of his father. Burnet relates that, walking in 
 the fields together, the old gentleman warned him of the dis- 
 position then obseivable among lawyers to stretch law and 
 prerogative to the prejudice of the subject ; charged him, if 
 he ever grew to any eminence in his profession, that he should 
 never "sacrifice the laws and liberties of his country to his own 
 interests, or to the will of a Prince ; and that, having repeated 
 this twice, he immediately fell into a fit of apoplexy, of which 
 he died in a few hours. 5 Clarendon himself wrote thus to a 
 friend : — " Without one minute's warning or fear, I have lost 
 the best father in the world, the sense of which hath been so 
 terrible to me, that I was enough inclined to think I had 
 nothing to do but to follow him." 
 
 The shock being over, he resolved, instead of renouncing 
 the world and living in retirement on his small estate, to con- 
 tinue to cultivate his profession, in the hope of rising to 
 eminence, and with the resolution to observe the dying in- 
 junction of his father. "He put on his gown as soon as he 
 was called to the bar, and, by the countenance of persons in 
 place and authority, as soon engaged himself in the business- of 
 the profession as he put on his gown, and to that degree in 
 practice that gave little time for study that he had too much 
 neglected before. 5 " 1 He would not submit to the drudgery of 
 "riding a circuit," — which he afterwards lamented, " both be- 
 cause it would have improved his acquaintance with various 
 classes of his countrymen, and because there is a very good 
 and necessary part of learning in the law which is not so easily 
 got any other way ;" ' but he regularly attended the Courts 
 at Westminster, and diligently devoted himself to the business 
 
 S Burn. Times, i. 270. this practice so much, that he meant to ha\e 
 
 h Life, iii. 974, 975. joined a circuit when the troubles broke oul 
 
 i Ibid. i. 32. He regretted the want of 
 
6 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIV. 
 
 of any clients who employed him. Though not much of a 
 lawyer compared with the black-letter men of those days, he 
 could, by his books and his friends, get up a respectable argu- 
 ment, even against Selden or Xoy, and having a much better 
 delivery, he was sometimes thought by the by-standers to be 
 superior to them in learning as well as eloquence. He lived 
 handsomely in London, and exercised a distinguished hospi- 
 tality at his house in Wiltshire ; but,, though he was rather 
 fond of talking of wines and dishes, he was very temperate, 
 and generally abstained from supper, the meal at which those 
 who were fond of good living most indulged. 
 
 His growing eminence appears from the fact that at the 
 grand masque given by the Tuns of Court to the 
 Queen, which we have several times had occasion to 
 allude to, the task was allotted to him, along with Whitelock, 
 of conferring with the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller 
 of the household, and taking order about the scenery and pre- 
 parations in the banqueting house, and he was deputed by the 
 Middle Temple to the office of returning thanks in the name of 
 the four Inns of Court to the King and Queen, "for their 
 • gracious acceptance of the tender of their service in the late 
 masque." k 
 
 In this mixture of business and pleasure some years rolled 
 on, by far the happiest period of the life of Clarendon. " With 
 an excellent wife, who perfectly resigned herself to him, and 
 who then had brought him, before any troubles in the kingdom, 
 three sons and a daughter, which he then and ever looked 
 upon as his greatest blessing and consolation," m his practice 
 steadily increased, particularly before the Privy Council ; he 
 was respected by his own profession ; he kept up an inter- 
 course with men eminent in literature ; he was countenanced 
 by powerful courtiers ; and he had before him a fair prospect 
 of reaching the highest honours of his profession. 
 
 The system of ruling by prerogative alone having been pur- 
 sued ever since he was of age, he had no opportunity of ac- 
 quiring parliamentary reputation. In his heart he highly 
 
 k As this is, I trust, my last notice of this Queen for her love of theatricals ; but they 
 
 performance, I may be permitted to say I am escape the disgrace of Shirley's ironical dedi- 
 
 sorry, for the credit of the Inns of Court, that cation of the " Bird in a Cage " to Prynne, 
 
 they were obliged to apply to Shirley the then in gaol und^r the inhuman sentence of 
 
 poet, to write them " The Triumph of Peace," the Star Chamber, — congratulating him on his 
 
 the masque then exhibited to show their " happy retirement ." 
 
 detestation of the Histriomastix, and of the m Life, i. 75. 
 coarse words supposed to be applied to the 
 
A.D. 1640. RETURNED TO PARLIAMENT. 7 
 
 disapproved of " ship-money," and the arbitrary proceedings of 
 the Star Chamber ; but he was moderate in his principles and 
 cautious in his conversation, and, trying to live well with both 
 parties, I do not find that he was employed in any of the 
 celebrated political cases which then attracted the attention of 
 the nation. However, in a dispute which the merchants of 
 London had with the Treasury as to their being compelled to 
 unload their goods at a particular quay, Hyde was their 
 counsel, and he here displayed what was considered great 
 courage against the government. This introduced him to 
 Archbishop Laud, then chief Commissioner of the Treasury 
 who wished to see the young lawyer who was not afraid to 
 plead the cause of the merchants, " when all men of name 
 durst not appear for them." Hyde consequently went to the 
 Archbishop, whom he found alone in his garden at Lambeth, 
 was received very civilly, and was afterwards treated by 
 him with condescension and kindness. n Those who regret 
 the strong high church bias which he afterwards displayed, 
 impute it to the impression now made upon him by his visits 
 to Lambeth, and think it might have been better for the cause 
 of religion in England if he had been thrown into the com- 
 pany of Bishop \\ illiams, Ex-Keeper of the Great Seal, who 
 was then leading the opposition against ceremonies and doc- 
 trines which he contended led directly to Eomanism. 
 
 At last Charles was driven to call a parliament, and Hyde 
 was in such good repute in his own country that he . ., 
 was returned both by Shaftesbury and Wootton Bas- 
 set. He made his election to serve for the latter town, which 
 had likewise the honour of first sending to the House of Com- 
 mons Twiss, the eminent lawyer, and the biographer of Lord 
 Eldon. Hyde's public career now begins, and he certainly 
 started with most enlightened and praiseworthy views. A 
 friend to the monarchy, he deeply regretted the abuses which 
 had been practised in the name of prerogative, and was eager 
 to correct them. For this purpose he associated himself with 
 Pym, Budyard, \Yhitelock, and the most experienced states- 
 men and lawyers, who, during this "short parliament," co- 
 operated with him in the same cause. 
 
 n I am glad to say a good word for Laud it should be recollected that this prelate not 
 when it is in my power, and he certainly de- only kept the best appointed pack of fox- 
 serves credit for his patronage of merit. He hounds in England, but was a most kind- 
 brought into notice Jeremy Taylor; and hearted, pious man, and so inoffensive that 
 though the fantasy must be condemned of even faction could not find fault with him 
 making Bishop Jcxok Lord High Treasurer, 
 
8 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON Chap. LXXIV 
 
 He had the honour of striking the first blow in the House 
 at a specific grievance. This was by a motion for papers re- 
 specting the Court of Honour, or Earl Marshal's Court, which, 
 under pretence of guarding heraldic distinctions, had become 
 a powerful engine of oppression. He mentioned several in- 
 stances with decisive effect. A citizen was ruinously fined 
 by this Court, because, in an altercation with an insolent 
 waterman who wished to impose upon him, he deridingly 
 called the sican on his badge " a goose." The case was brought 
 within the jurisdiction of the Court by showing that the 
 waterman was an earl's servant, and that the swan was the 
 earl's crest. The citizen was severely punished for " dis- 
 honouring " this crest. — Again, a tailor who had often very 
 submissively asked payment of his bill from a customer of gentle 
 blood, whose pedigree was duly registered at the Heralds' 
 College, on a threat of personal violence for his importunity, 
 was provoked into saying that " he was as good a man as his 
 debitor." For this offence, which was alleged to be a levelling 
 attack upon the aristocracy, he was summoned before the 
 Earl Marshal's Court, and mercifully dismissed with a repri- 
 mand — on releasing the debt. AYhile the House was thus 
 amused and excited, Hyde successfully concluded his maiden 
 speech by telling them that not only was this Court oppressive 
 to the humbler classes, but that its exactions were onerous to 
 the nobility themselves, and to the whole body of the gentry 
 of England. ° 
 
 So active was he, that his name is to be found in seven 
 of the twenty-one select committees which were appointed 
 during the sixteen days the Commons sat, including "the 
 committee of privileges and elections," " the committee on 
 ship-money," and " the committee to inquire into the pro- 
 ceedings of the convocation and innovations in matters of 
 religion." 
 
 Very soon after he showed his moderation by supporting 
 the Court on the grand question of supply. An indiscreet 
 message had been brought down from the King, demanding 
 twelve subsidies to be paid in three years, and making the 
 abolition of ship-money depend upon this specific grant. 
 Hampden, described as being now " the most popular man in 
 the House," dexterously demanded that the question to be put 
 might be, " Whether the House would consent to the propo- 
 
 Com. Jour. April 18, 1640. The business only began on the 16th of April, after the 
 *hoice of the Speaker 
 
A.D. 1640. SUPPORTS THE SUPPLY. 9 
 
 Bition made by the King as it was contained in the message V — so 
 as to insure the rejection of the King's proposition. 
 
 Hyde, not dreading the collision into which he was brought, 
 nor the misconstruction to which he might be liable, with 
 great mcral courage desired that the question, as proposed by 
 Mr. Hampden, might not be put. He argued that " it was a 
 captious question, to which only one sort of men could clearly 
 give their vote, which were they for rejecting the King's pro- 
 position and no more resuming the debate upon that subject ; 
 but that they who desired to give the King a supply, as he 
 believed most did, though not in such a proportion, nor it 
 may be in that manner, could receive no satisfaction from 
 that question; and therefore he proposed, to the end that 
 every man might frankly give his yea or his no, that the 
 question might be put only upon the giving the King a 
 supply." p " 
 
 There were loud cries for Mr. Hyde's question, when old 
 Sir Harry Yane, the Treasurer of the household (as some 
 thought treacherously), declared that there would be no use in 
 that question, for he had authority to say that a supply would 
 not be accepted by his Majesty if it were not granted in the pro- 
 portion and manner proposed in his message. Hyde therefore 
 no longer pressed his amendment, and the debate on the 
 general question was adjourned till the following day, the 
 courtiers threatening an immediate dissolution. 
 
 Hyde, foreseeing the fatal consequences of such a step, in- 
 stantly repaired to Laud, on whose advice, in the absence of 
 Strafford, it was supposed the King would act, and trading him 
 in his garden at Lambeth, told him he feared a dissolution 
 was meditated, and that " he came only to beseech him to use 
 all his credit to prevent such a desperate counsel, which 
 would produce great mischief to the King and to the Church, 
 assuring him that the House was as well constituted and . dis- 
 posed as ever House of Commons was or would be." The 
 Archbishop heard him patiently, but differed from him entirely 
 as to the disposition of the House, and affected to say that he 
 would not advise a dissolution, but neither would he counsel 
 the King against it. 
 
 On returning to the House from this interview, Hyde was 
 more grieved than surprised by the Black Eod's summons for 
 the Commons forthwith to attend his Majesty in the House of 
 
 P Hist. Reb. b. i. This is the mode in which the question is now put, the motion being 
 "that a supply be granted to her Majesty." 
 
10 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIV. 
 
 Lords, and by there hearing him, with expressions of high dis 
 pleasure, dissolve the parliament. 
 
 All were struck with consternation, except a few hot-headed 
 courtiers and some deep designing men, who did not wish to 
 obtain redress by temperate means, and were desirous of ag- 
 gravating dissension between the parliament and the Crown, 
 with a view to important organic changes in the constitution. 
 One of these was Oliver St. John, who, with an air of unusual 
 cheerfulness, met Hyde an hour after the dissolution, and 
 hearing him deplore the unseasonable dismissal of "so wise a 
 parliament," answered with warmth — "All is well: it must 
 be worse before it can be better : this parliament would never 
 have done what must be done before it is merry in England." 
 
 " No man can show me," wrote Clarendon, when, after the 
 lapse of many years, he recalled this scene to his memory, " a 
 source from whence these waters of bitterness we now taste 
 have more probably flowed than from these unseasonable, un- 
 skilful, and precipitate dissolutions of parliament." q 
 
 To his unspeakable grief, this dissolution was immediately 
 followed by measures which indicated a determination that 
 parliament should never meet again, — popular leaders being 
 committed to the Fleet for refusing to disclose what had 
 passed in the House, — ship-money being exacted more rigor- 
 ously than before, — a new tax being levied on the counties 
 under the name of "Coat and Conduct Money," — and four 
 aldermen of London being sent to gaol for declining to contri- 
 bute to a forced loan in the City. 
 
 But before the end of the same year it was found, that if the 
 King had attempted to trust longer to mere prerogative he 
 would have ceased to reign. 
 
 Hyde sat in the Long Parliament for the borough of Saltash. 
 His conduct in the first session of it entitles him to be placed 
 in the first rank of English Eeformers. He began by sacri- 
 ficing his lucrative profession to the discharge of his public 
 duties. Without office, or any immediate prospect of political 
 preferment, he left the bar, reserving to himself the right to 
 return to it in quieter times, and he bent the whole energies 
 _f his mind to the constitutional correction of existing abuses. 
 While he zealously supported the great measures brought 
 forward by others for abolishing the Star Chamber and High 
 Commission, for determining the boundaries of the royal 
 
 1 Hist. Reb. b. i. Charles had little regarded the dying advice of Lord Keeper Coventry, 
 %nte, Vol. III. Ch. LX1I 
 
A.D. 1640. HIS ACTIVITY IN CORRECTING ABUSES. 11 
 
 forests, for preventing the arbitrary levy of customs upon mer- 
 chandise, and for insuring the frequent meeting of parlia- 
 ments, he himself originated and carried through several very 
 important reforms. 
 
 He began with his old subject, the Earl Marshal's Court, 
 and moved for a select committee to inquire into its oppres- 
 sions. This obnoxious tribunal had not relaxed in its mis- 
 chievous activity since its recent exposure, and Hyde, who 
 now "spake smartly and ingenuously," r said, that for words 
 of supposed defamation, of which the law took no notice, more 
 damages had been given by the sole judgment of the Earl 
 Marshal in two days, than by juries in all the actions tried in 
 all the Courts in Westminster Hall during a whole term. He 
 further proved, that the supposed Court was a mere usurpa- 
 tion during the present reign, the earliest precedent of its 
 havimr entertained a suit for words being in the year 1633. 
 The committee reported, "that the Constable's and Earl Mar- 
 shal's Court has no jurisdiction to hold plea of Avords, that the 
 Earl Marshal can make no Court without the Constable, and 
 that the Earl Marshal's Court is a grievance." The report 
 was adopted by the House ; and so palpable was the usurpa- 
 tion which, unchecked, might have been confirmed by usage, 
 that the Earl Marshal begged pardon for what he had done, 
 throwing the blame upon his advisers, and, without any bill to 
 abolish it, " the Court never presumed to sit afterwards." 
 
 Hyde was a member of the committee for inquiring into the 
 illegal conduct of the Judges respecting ship-money, and as- 
 sisted Lord Falkland in preparing the charges against Lord 
 Keeper Finch. He presented from this committee a report 
 which so deeply implicated Mr. Justice Berkely, that the 
 learned Judge, while sitting in the Court of King's Bench in 
 his robes, was arrested, and brought away prisoner through 
 Westminster Hall, then full of people. But his unmeasured 
 exposure of "judicial delinquency" was at a conference with 
 the Lords respecting the Barons of the Exchequer, which he 
 thus began : " My Lords, there cannot be a greater instance of 
 a sick and languishing commonwealth than the business of this 
 day. Good God ! how have the guilty these late years been 
 punished, when the Judges themselves have been such de- 
 linquents ? It is no marvel that an irregular, extravagant, 
 arbitrary power, like a torrent, bath broken in upon us, when 
 our banks and our bulwarks, the laws, were in the custody of 
 
 1 Whit. Mem. 50. 
 
12 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIV 
 
 such persons. Men who had lost their innocence could not 
 preserve their courage ; nor could we look that they who had 
 so visibly undone us, themselves should have the virtue or 
 credit to rescue us from the oppression of other men. It was 
 said by one who always spoke excellently, that the twelve Judges 
 were like the twelve lions under the throne of Solomon, — under the 
 throne in obedience, but yet lions. Your Lordships shall this 
 day hear of six, who (be they what they will be else) were no 
 lions ; who upon vulgar fears delivered up the precious forts 
 they were trusted with almost without assault, and in a tame 
 and easy trance of flattery and servitude, lost and forfeited 
 (shamefully forfeited) that reputation, awe, and reverence 
 which the wisdom, courage, and gravity of their venerable 
 predecessors had contracted and fastened to the places they 
 now hold ; and even rendered that study and profession, which 
 in all ages hath been, and I hope now shall be, of an honour- 
 able estimation, so contemptible and vile, that had not this 
 blessed day come, all men would have had this quarrel to the 
 law itself, which Marius had to the Greek tongue, who thought 
 it a mockery to learn that language, the masters whereof lived 
 in bondage under others. But it is in your Lordships' power 
 (and I am sure it is in your Lordships' will) to restore the 
 dejected, broken people of this island to their former joy and 
 security, the successors of these men to their own privilege 
 and veneration, et sepultas prope leges revocare." 8 Having dwelt 
 upon the resolution in favour of ship-money, which he de- 
 nounced as " a prodigy of crime," he came to the misconduct 
 of the Barons, in going so far as to deny the subject the op- 
 portunity of being heard against the illegal increase of duties 
 on importations, by refusing replevies, and in sanctioning the 
 levying of tonnage and poundage without authority of parlia- 
 ment. — If we do riot altogether approve his rhetorical figures, 
 we cannot but admire his sentiments, and the boldness and 
 vehemence with which he urged them. The known mode- 
 ration of his character gave additional weight to his efforts 
 against the Judges, and he was mainly instrumental in 
 bringing down punishment upon them, and in procuring the 
 condemnation of the slavish doctrines which thev had incul- 
 cated. 
 
 The next subject which he took up was " the Council of 
 
 a riL i64i ^ e North," which had been established by Henry 
 
 VIII. after an insurrection, and being continued 
 
 8 Rushw. iv. 333. 
 
A.D. 1641. SUPPORTS PROSECUTION AGAINST STRAFFORD. IS 
 
 without any regard to the rules of the common law, had 
 become, — particularly under the presidency of the Earl of 
 Strafford, — a scourge to the northern counties, lie clearly 
 showed its illegality and its mischiefs, — and after a confer- 
 ence with the Lords, in which he made another long speech 
 against it, he procured its suppression. 
 
 He testified his sincere desire of a peaceable settlement by 
 earnestly joining in the negotiations with the merchants in 
 the City to raise money for paying the arrears due to the 
 Scottish army, and enabling them to return to their own coun- 
 try, although the more violent party wished them to remain 
 as a check upon the King ; and Strode said publicly in the 
 House, " We cannot yet spare the Scotch ; the sons of Ze- 
 ruiah are too strong for us." 
 
 A controversy has arisen respecting the part taken by 
 Hyde in the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford. In his ac- 
 count of it in the History of the Eebellion, he never once 
 introduces his own name, and he censures those who con- 
 ducted it. But though he thought fit thus to write long after 
 the event, there cannot be a doubt that he, as well as Lord 
 Falkland, at the meeting of the Long Parliament looked with 
 abhorrence upon the apostate who had systematically at- 
 tempted to establish despotism in England and in Ireland — 
 that they both thought he deserved death, or reconciled it to 
 their consciences that he ought to die, on the ground that 
 his existence was incompatible with the public safety, — and 
 that they both were instrumental in bringing him to the 
 scaffold. 
 
 Hyde, when denouncing that unconstitutional tribunal, the 
 Council of the North, inveighed bitterly against the tyranny 
 of the Earl of Strafford as its President. When, in the 
 course of the impeachment, a difficulty arose as to the attend- 
 ance of members of the House of Commons as witnesses in the 
 House of Lords, he was one of the committee of seven by 
 whose assistance the difficulty was removed. He was Nov. 28, 
 originally a member of the Committee to prepare the 16i0 - 
 charge against Strafford (morally speaking, the black- Jan - 6 . 1641 - 
 est of all) — for his illegal judgment of death by a court-martial 
 on Lord Mountnorris, and he was added to the committee of im- 
 peachment for the examination of the serious charge brought 
 forward by the petition of Lord Langdale. He acted as chief 
 manager in a conference with the Lords, with the view of 
 sequestrating Strafford from his offices while the prosecution 
 
14 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXX1V 
 
 was pending, — and he was added to a committee for expedit- 
 ing the trial. But what shows even personal animosity and 
 vindictiveness is, that Hyde took an active part in discovering 
 and counteracting the plan that was formed to enable Straf- 
 ford, like Lord Keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank, to 
 escape beyond the seas. He communicated the name of a 
 suspected ship, in consequence of which an examination took 
 place before the House of the master of the ship, and of the 
 Lieutenant of the Tower, and he willingly bore a message to 
 the Lords from the Commons, " that they have received in- 
 formation, and have reason to believe it to be true, that the 
 Earl of Strafford intends to make his escape out of the Tower ; 
 and that there are ships, or a ship, ready in the river of Thames, 
 at Tilburyhope, to convey him away ; and farther they are 
 informed that the doors of the Tower are not well guarded. 
 Therefore they desire their Lordships would take order that 
 the Earl of Strafford may be close prisoner, and to have the 
 Tower better guarded than now it is." l 
 
 That Hyde zealously favoured the proceeding while in the 
 shape of impeachment is demonstrated by direct, positive, and 
 incontrovertible evidence. I think there is as little doubt 
 that he supported the bill of attainder, although here the evi- 
 dence is only negative and circumstantial. He must have 
 divided upon the bill, and a list was published of the members 
 who voted against it under the title of " Straffordians," 
 among whom he is not found. Lord Falkland actually spoke 
 in favour of the bill ; and Hyde himself says, that the ques- 
 tion respecting the exclusion of the Bishops from parliament, 
 which arose afterwards, was the first question on which they 
 had ever differed. 
 
 The only circumstance that has a contrary aspect, is an 
 anecdote which Hyde himself relates, — very possibly with 
 the view of conveying the impression that he was hostile to 
 the bill, — but which, giving full credit to it, is perfectly con- 
 sistent with the notion that his hostility to Strafford remained 
 unabated to the last. After the severe duty of attendance in 
 parliament, beginning at eight in the morning, the members 
 of both Houses, and of both parties, used occasionally to re- 
 create themselves by a little country excursion in the after- 
 noon to " Pickadilly, which was a fair house for entertain- 
 ment and gaming, with handsome gravel walks and shade, 
 and where were an upper and lower bowling-green." On« 
 
 1 Com. Journ. 
 
A.D. 1641. EXECUTION OF STRAFFORD. 15 
 
 afternoon, Hyde, being here to recruit after a long speech he 
 had made in the morning, was accosted by the Earl of Bed- 
 ford, who, sincerely wishing to save Strafford, proposed the 
 milder course of making him incapable of all future employ- 
 ment, said that he should not despair if he could persuade the 
 Earl of Essex to comply, and ended with entreating Hyde 
 to employ persuasions to the same effect. Essex coming up, 
 Bedford left them alone together, and, falling upon the pend- 
 ing bill of attainder, Hyde observed that " there was a dis- 
 agreement upon the point of treason, but if they declined that, 
 they should all agree that there were crimes and misdemean- 
 ours evidently enough proved to deserve so severe a censure 
 as would absolutely take away all power from the Earl of 
 Strafford that might prove dangerous to the kingdom." Essex's 
 laconic reply was, — "Stone-dead hath no fellow." u But 
 Hyde might surely oblige the Earl of Bedford by sounding 
 a powerful leader of the popular party in the Lords, as to the 
 expediency of a less rigorous course against the great state de- 
 linquent, without having altered his own opinion that he should 
 suffer as a traitor ; and we must ever remember that if he had 
 taken a different part from Lord Falkland upon this subject, 
 his. name would have been among "the Straffordians.'' It 
 certainly does astonish us, that such men, however they may 
 have condemned the conduct of Strafford, could bring them- 
 selves to believe that he was guilty of the crime of high 
 treason ; for they could hardly have been deceived by the 
 wicked sophistry of St. John, that an attempt to subvert the 
 fundamental laws of the kingdom was high treason at common 
 law, and still remains so, — or by the base opinion delivered 
 by the Judges, that this amounts to high treason under the 
 statute of Edward III. But we ought to decide upon acts 
 according to the notions of the enlightened and the honour- 
 able in the times when they were committed, and we must be 
 slow to reprobate the execution of Strafford, which was ap- 
 proved by Hyde and by Falkland.* 
 
 u Hist. Reb. b. i. Sir Ralph Verney's notes, taken in pencil 
 
 x Although the King's death was the act of during the Long Parliament, affords convinc- 
 
 » small section, that of Strafford was with the ing evidence of the strong part taken by 
 
 consent of the great bulk of the nation. The Hyde against the Court, 
 recent publication by the Camden Society of 
 
16 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON Chap. LXXV 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HE WAS SENT TO 
 BRISTOL WITH THE CHARGE OF PRINCE CHARLES. 
 
 In the " History of the Rebellion " there is strong, and I 
 think just, censure thrown upon the bill which was 
 next brought forward " for the perpetual parliament," 
 as it was afterwards called ; but there is as little doubt that 
 " the noble Historian " not only acquiesced in it, but ap- 
 plauded it. He says, "it is not credible what an universal 
 reception and concurrence it met with, although it was to 
 remove the landmarks and to destroy the foundation of the 
 kingdom." The truth is, that he and others saw the mischiefs 
 which arise from abrupt dissolutions, but were blind to the 
 dangers of an irresponsible oligarchy uncontrollable by consti- 
 tutional means — to be overthrown only by military despotism. 
 It is deeply to be regretted that the reasonable amendment, 
 carried in the Lords, was rejected by the Lower House, — 
 limiting the operation of the bill to two years, — within which 
 time it might have been reasonably expected that all griev- 
 ances might be redressed, and all constitutional controversies 
 adjusted, — so that the power of dissolving the parliament 
 might be safely restored to the Crown. 
 
 But although Hyde was earned away by the general im- 
 pulse — when the bill had passed, he soon saw " that the Com- 
 mons now that they could not be dissolved without their own 
 consent (the apprehension and fear whereof had always be- 
 fore kept them within some bounds of modesty), they called 
 any power they pleased to assume to themselves a branch of 
 their privileges of which they were the only proper judges." a 
 He now changed his party, but (I must say), without being at 
 all liable to the imputation of a change from mercenary mo- 
 tives, which is conveyed by the modem word " ratting." He 
 
 B Hist. Reb. b. i. The House resolved, on it should not be obeyed ; " and this doctrine 
 
 the motion of Serjeant Wilde, "that when they applied even to their right to issue orden 
 
 they had declared what was the law of the to raise troops in the King's name to fighj 
 
 land, it was a breach of their privileges that against his person. 
 
A.D. 1641. OPPOSES EXCLUSION OF BISHOPS. 17 
 
 did not, like Wentworth, barter his principles for preferment 
 and power. He thought, very plausibly, that enough had 
 been done to redress grievances, and that the danger now 
 was from popular usurpation, much more than from an exten- 
 sion of prerogative, v\ hatever opinion might be entertained 
 of the King's sincerity or secret inclinations, the royal 
 assent had been given to statutes which, in some measure, 
 adapted the constitution to the actual circumstances' of the 
 country. And although there was a pestilent set of lawyers, 
 who contended that acts of parliament limiting the preroga- 
 tive were not binding, the same national energy which had 
 extorted these acts would have been ready to defend them. 
 Hyde threw his weight into the royal scale, that it might not 
 kick the beam. He says that his resolution was much strength- 
 ened by conversations he had about this time with some of the 
 popular leaders who betrayed their antimonarchical views. 
 " I do not think one man wise enough to govern us all," said 
 Henry Martin, — and Fiennes, at this time a furious presby- 
 terian, told him " that there were many who would encounter 
 the worst extremities of civil war if the King should resist the 
 abolition of episcopacy, for that there was a great number of 
 good men who wished to lose their lives before they would 
 ever submit to that government." b 
 
 It was upon a church question that he split with his old 
 friends. After the failure of the first attempt to exclude the 
 Bishops from parliament, a Select Committee had reported, 
 11 That the legislative and judicial powder of Bishops in the 
 House of Peers is a great hindrance to the discharge of their 
 spiritual functions, prejudicial to the Commonwealth, and fit 
 to be taken away." Against a bill founded on this resolu- 
 tion, Hyde made an earnest speech, arguing that it went to 
 change the whole frame and constitution of the kingdom, and 
 of the parliament itself. 
 
 Lord Falkland defended it — according to Hyde — as the 
 only expedient to save the church, — but dealt by no means 
 tenderly with the arguments of his friend against it, and boldly- 
 insisted that both on spiritual and civil considerations the 
 Bishops ought to be excluded. 
 
 This encounter in debate did not interrupt their friend- 
 ship. After the difference of opinion between them had for a 
 short time extended to some matters of minor importance, it 
 entirely vanished, and they continued ever after politically, as 
 
 b Life, i. 92. 
 VOL IV. C 
 
18 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXV. 
 
 well as personally, united, — for there was now manifested a 
 clear intention to upset the Church and the Monarchy. 
 
 The bill frr excluding the Bishops from parliament having 
 passed the Commons, it was followed by a bill " for the utter 
 abolishing atd taking away of all Archbishops, Bishops, their 
 Chancellors and Commissioners, Deans and Chapters, Arch 
 deacons, Prebendaries, Choristers and Canons, and other under 
 Officers, out of the Church of England." c This Hyde stren- 
 uously opposed, but the second reading was carried by a 
 majority of 139 to 108. When it got into a committee of the 
 whole House, — by way of a manoeuvre, that he might be 
 silenced, he was placed in the chair ; but he, considering 
 counter-manoeuvring pious in such a cause, tells lis, that by 
 dexterous management as Chairman, he was enabled greatly 
 to obstruct it, and as it contained clauses for the new govern- 
 ment of the Church, about which few were agreed, it had 
 made but little progress when parliamentary proceedings were 
 suspended by the King's journey into Scotland. d 
 
 Before then an event had taken place which had a powerful 
 influence on the destiny of Hyde. He had held no intercourse 
 with the Court, and there, till very lately, he had been re- 
 garded with bitter aversion. But one day, while the " Epis- 
 copacy abolition bill " was in Committee, he was informed by 
 Mr. Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, that the 
 King desired to speak with him. He went, and the following 
 is his account of the interview, — written, however, many 
 years after. Charles told him " that he heard from all hands 
 how much he was beholden to him, and that when all his ser- 
 vants in the House of Commons either neglected his service or 
 could not appear usefully in it, he took all occasion to do him 
 service ; for which he thought fit to give him his own thanks, 
 and to assure him that he would remember it to his advantage. 
 The King took notice of his affection for the Church, for 
 which he said he thanked him more than all the rest., which 
 the other acknowledged with the duty that became him, and 
 said that he was very happy that his Majesty was pleased 
 
 c 2 Pari. Hist 725, 792, 814, 916. was at Sir Richard Manby's house, in a little 
 
 d While this committee was sitting, he court behind Westminster Hall, where he and 
 
 continued on terms of great courtesy with the Mr. Hampden, Sir Arthur Hazelrig, and two 
 
 promoters of the bill. He says, " the House or three more upon a stock kept a table 
 
 keeping those disorderly hours, and seldom where they transacted much business, and 
 
 rising till after four of the clock in the after- invited thither those of whose conversion 
 
 noon, they frequently importuned him to tuey had any hope."— It appears that Hyd* 
 
 4ice with thesa at Mr. Pym's lodging, whicb cflen accepted the invitation. — Life L 80. 
 
A.D. 1641. "REMONSTRANCE" BY PARLIAMENT. 19 
 
 with what .ie did ; but if he had commanded him to have withdrawn 
 his affection mid reverence for the Church, he would not have obeyed him, 
 which, his Majesty said, made him love him the better. Then he 
 discoursed of the passion of the House, and of the bill then 
 brought in against Episcopacy, and asked him whether he 
 thought they w r ould be able to carry it? To which he an- 
 swered, that he believed they could not; at least, that it 
 would be very long first. ' Nay,' replied the King, ' if you 
 will look to it, that they do not cany it before I go for 
 Scotland, which will be when the armies are disbanded, I 
 will undertake for the Church after that time.' ' "Why, then,' 
 said the other, ' by the grace of God, it will not be in much 
 danger.' With which the King was well pleased, and dis- 
 missed him with very gracious expressions." e 
 
 Hyde was now a regular adherent to the royal cause, and if 
 we forget the insincerity of Charles and the supposed necessity 
 of imposing harder conditions for securing what had been 
 obtained; we should be disposed severely to blame those who 
 wished still further to humble the Crown : but Hampden and 
 Whitelock, who were attached to the constitution, and who at 
 the opening of the parliament had hardly differed from any 
 sentiment of Hyde and Falkland, remained unsatisfied; and 
 as they well knew the character of the King and the cir- 
 cumstances of the times, we must be slow to blame the course 
 which they adopted. It led in the result to civil war ; but if 
 Charles had been allowed quietly to carry into effect his plans 
 in Scotland, and with a well supplied treasury to support an 
 army in England, — all the bills to which he had recently 
 assented might have been treated like the Petition of Right ; 
 he might have wreaked the vengeance which he certainly medi- 
 tated upon the popular leaders ; and he might finally have 
 triumphed over the liberties of his country. 
 
 With a view to check the re-action which was very per- 
 ceptible in the King's favour on his return from Scotland, 
 the famous " Eemonstrance " was moved, — recapitulating in 
 harsh language all the errors of his reign, and all the griev- 
 ances under which the people had laboured. This Hyde 
 strenuously opposed as unnecessary and insulting, and it was 
 carried only by a small majority/ A question then arose 
 as to whether it should be published before it was commu- 
 nicated to the Lords ; and he was in great danger of being 
 sent to the Tower for having proposed, after the fashion of 
 
 e Life, i. 93. f 159 to 143. 2 Pari. Hist. 937, 942. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON, Chap. LXXV 
 
 the Lords, to enter a protest against a resolution to that 
 effect. 
 
 He now wrote his maiden state paper in the royal cause, 
 which was a manifesto in the King's name, in answer to the 
 " .Remonstrance." He says, that he first sketched it as an 
 exercise without any thought of its being used ; but showing 
 it to some friends, it was carried to the King, who was highly 
 pleased with it, and adopted it. The tone of it is certainly 
 excellent, and if the composition be not quite pure, it is at 
 any rate in better taste than the addresses of the parliament. 
 
 Falkland and Colepeper were now introduced into office as 
 Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the 
 King again sending for Hyde told him, in the presence of the 
 Queen, " that he was much beholden to him for many good 
 services ; and that now he had preferred two of his friends, it 
 was time to give him some testimony of his favour, and there- 
 fore he had sent for him to tell him that lie intended to make 
 him his Solicitor-General in the place of him who had served 
 him so ilL" B — Hyde. "God forbid."— King. "Why, God for- 
 bid?" — Hyde. "Sire, it is my duty to advise your Majesty 
 that it is by no means fit that at this time the other should be 
 removed, and to assure your Majesty that if he were removed, 
 I am in no degree fit to succeed him." 
 
 The Queen then, in a very complimentary manner, insisted 
 on Hyde's high qualifications for the office ; but he besought 
 them to believe, "that although the present Solicitor- General 
 will never do much service, he will be able to do much more 
 mischief if he be removed." They then proposed another 
 opening for him ; but he tells us he assured them " he should 
 be able to do much more service in the condition he was in." h 
 
 Hyde thus for the present remained without any office ; but 
 a sort of inner cabinet was constituted, consisting of him, 
 Falkland, and Colepeper, — whom the King desired to meet 
 frequently to consult on his affairs, — to conduct them in par- 
 liament, — and to give him constant advice what he was to do, 
 — solemnly pledging himself " that without their consent, he would 
 take no step in parliament whatever." ' 
 
 The three associates met nightly at Hyde's house, con- 
 ferring on the events of the by-gone day, and concerting 
 measures for the morrow. To him was assigned the drawing 
 of all papers which were to appear before the world against 
 the proceedings of the parliament, and he likewise carried on 
 
 g Oliver St. John. Life. i. 101. i Ibid. i. 102. 
 
A.D. 1642. SENT BY PARLIAMENT TO THE KING. 21 
 
 a private correspondence with the King to inform him ol their 
 sentiments, and to keep him steady to bis purpose. 
 
 Under this arrangement the royal cause visibly prospered ; 
 and the people, according to their natural levity and ingrati- 
 tude, already forgetting the reforms which the parliament had 
 achieved for them, were beginning to regard the leaders da 
 men merely actuated by personal ambition, — when the King, 
 being told by foolish courtiers and bed-chamber women tha"! 
 the moment had arrived for victory and vengeance, orde.ed 
 Herbert, the Attorney-General, forthwith to go to the House 
 of Lords, and to impeach Lord Kimbolton and the Jan. 4, 
 five members for high treason, — and he himself, in 1642 - 
 his own proper person, entered the House of Commons to 
 arrest them with his own hand. 
 
 We may judge of Hyde's consternation at the news of these 
 proceedings, from his statement written years alter, when in- 
 dignation at the treachery of Charles, and contempt for his 
 weakness, had been almost absorbed in pity for his misfor- 
 tunes. " The three persons before named, without whose 
 privity the King had promised that -he would enter upon no 
 counsel, were so much displeased and dejected, that they 
 were inclined never more to take upon them the care of any 
 thing to be transacted in the House, finding already that they 
 could not avoid being looked upon as the authors of those 
 counsels, to which they were so absolute strangers, and which 
 they so perfectly detested ; and, in truth, they had then with- 
 drawn themselves from appealing often in the House but upon 
 the abstracted consideration of their duty and conscience, and 
 the present ill condition the King was in." k 
 
 It is creditable to Hyde that, without office or emolument, 
 he continued on public grounds to serve a Sovereign in whom 
 he could no longer place private confidence, at a time when 
 difficulties were so rapidly accumulating round him. The 
 parliament now openly assumed the functions of the executive 
 government, by ordering out the train-bands, and issuing com- 
 mands to the governors of fortresses. They even interfered 
 with the management of the King's children ; and Hyde was 
 ordered, along with another member of the House of Commons 
 and a Peer, to attend his Majesty and inform him of their 
 wishes, that Prince Charles should not be removed from 
 Hampton Court. The deputation found the King at Canter- 
 bury on his return from Dover, where the Queen had em 
 
 k Hist. Reb. b. iL 
 
22 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXV. 
 
 barked — after persuading him to assent to the " Bishops' 
 Exclusion Bill." They were ordered '* to attend hnn after he 
 had supped, and they should receive their answer." Accord- 
 ingly they were admitted at nine o'clock, and a sharp rebuke 
 was read to them for their impertinence. In public, Hyde 
 could only act and be treated as one of the deputies; but he 
 contrived to have a private interview when the King was 
 undressing for bed, and with great difficulty prevailed upon 
 him to recall the answer, "which could produce no good, and 
 might do hurt," and to desire the deputation to wait upon him 
 at Greenwich to receive his final reply, although Charles 
 still " enlarged with much sharpness upon the insolence of 
 the message." 
 
 In ihe mean time Hyde, with the sanction of Falkland and 
 Colepeper, framed a more moderate answer, which was 
 adopted. Henceforward he was entirely in the King's con- 
 fidence, and drew all the papers which were supposed by the 
 Council even to be the King's own composition, — on a pro- 
 mise that the real authorship of them should be kept a 
 profound secret. " His Majesty continued so firm in this re- 
 solution, that though the declarations from the Houses shortly 
 after grew so voluminous, that the answers frequently con- 
 tained five or six sheets of paper closely writ, his Majesty 
 always transcribed them with his own hand, which sometimes 
 took him up two or three days and a good part of the night, 
 before he produced them to the Council, where they were first 
 read, and then he burned the originals." m 
 
 Charles now withdrew from Whitehall, which he never 
 again entered except as a prisoner, and travelling towards 
 the north, prepared for war. Hyde seems to have thought 
 that he would have done better to have trusted to the general 
 disgust which must soon have been produced by the violent 
 encroachment of the parliament, if he had appeared to place 
 confidence in the returning good sense and lo}'alty of the 
 people. In a letter to Charles, he solemnly warned him 
 against the counsels of violent men. Having mentioned the 
 reports respecting his Majesty's " designs of immediate force," 
 he decently says, " to none of which your servants give the 
 least credit, assuring themselves that, however your affairs 
 and conveniences have invited you to York, you intend to sit 
 as quietly there as if you were at Whitehall. For your 
 Majesty well knows that your greatest strength is in the 
 
 m Life, i. 119—125 
 
A.D. 1642. JOINS THE KING AT YORK. 23 
 
 hearts and affections .of those persons who have been the 
 severest assertors of the public liberties ; and so, besides their 
 duty and loyalty to your person, are in love with your in- 
 clinations to peace and justice, and value their own interests 
 upon the preservation of your rights. These your Majesty 
 will not lose by any act which may beget just fears in them. 
 Neither can there be so cunning a way found out to assist 
 those who wish not well to your Majesty (if any such there 
 be), as by giving the least hint to your people that you rely 
 upon any thing but the strength of your laws and their 
 obedience." n 
 
 The parliament saw the advantage which the King might 
 have drawn from delay, and they hurried on their Ordinance 
 about the militia, to which he could not consent, — as, in 
 violation of the first principles of the constitution, it trans- 
 ferred to them the power of the sword, and it virtually de- 
 throned him. The King's declaration drawn by Hyde on 
 rejecting this measure, is a master^ performance, and must 
 have produced a considerable effect upon the public mind." 
 
 Notwithstanding all the precautions which were used, there 
 was a strong suspicion that the member for Saltash carried on 
 a secret correspondence with the King, and a motion was 
 planned for an inquiry " upon whose advice the King acted," 
 — to be followed up by an order for sending the offender to 
 the Tower ; but before this intention could be carried into 
 effect, Hyde finally withdrew from the parliament. He re- 
 ceived a letter from the King expressing a wish that he should 
 repair to York, ' ' there being now urgent occasions for his im- 
 mediate advice." Having come to an explanation with the 
 Lord Keeper Littleton, p he obtained leave of absence for a few 
 days upon a physician's written recommendation " that he 
 should take the air of the country for his health." q He first 
 went to the house of a friend near Oxford, and there hearing of 
 the escape of the Lord Keeper, he prosecuted his journey ac- 
 companied by Chillingworth. Travelling by unfrequented 
 roads he safely reached Nastall, the residence of Sir John 
 Worstenholnie, about twenty miles from York. Here, where 
 he had been expected, the King sent him the parliament's 
 famous proclamation of the 26th of May, and required him to 
 furnish a prompt reply, " that the poison might not work too 
 long upon the minds of the people." Having performed this 
 
 a. 
 
 Or. State Pap. ii. 139. ° Rushworth, iv. 578—599. 2 Pari. Hist. 1201. 
 
 ' Ante, Vol. IIL Chap. LXVI. 1 Life, i. 136. 
 
2-i LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXV, 
 
 task, he kissed the King's hand at York, and thenceforth re 
 mained constantly near his person, till the disasters of the war 
 caused their final separation. 
 
 Then came k 'the nineteen propositions" — more rigorous 
 than those imposed by the Barons on Edward II. or on 
 Richard II., by which were to be subjected to the control of 
 parliament the appointment of all privy councillors and 
 ministers of state, the keeping of all forts and castles, the com- 
 mand of the militia, and the government, education, and mar- 
 riage of the King's children ;— the King was to consent to 
 such a reformation of the church-governnient and liturgy as 
 both Houses shall advise ; — every member of either House dis- 
 missed from office during the present parliament, was to be 
 restored on the petition of the House of which he was a mem- 
 ber; — the justice of parliament was to pass on all delin- 
 quents, notwithstanding the royal pardon ; — Papist Peers were 
 disqualified, — and no Peers made thereafter were to sit or vote 
 in parliament till admitted thereunto with the consent of both 
 Houses/ The King's answer prepared by the three friends, 
 powerful in reasoning and touching in sentiment, thus con- 
 cluded : — " These being passed, we may be waited upon bare- 
 headed, we may have our hand kissed, the style of Majesty 
 continued to us, and the King's authority declared by both 
 Houses of parliament may be still the style of your com- 
 mands ; we may have swords and maces carried before us, and 
 please ourself with the sight of a crown and a sceptre ; but as 
 to true and real power, we should remain but the outside, but 
 the picture, but the sign of a King." s 
 
 Hyde now heartily concurred in the issuing of the Commis- 
 sions of array, — in the declaration signed by a majority of the 
 Peers and many of the northern gentry binding themselves to 
 defend the King's person, crown, and dignity, — and in the 
 proclamation requiring the aid of all the King's subjects north 
 of Trent and within twenty miles southward thereof, for sup- 
 pressing the rebels now marching against him. He was pre- 
 sent, not disapproving, though with an aching heart, at the 
 scene of erecting the royal standard at Nottingham, of which 
 he has left us such a graphic description : — " The standard 
 was erected at six of the clock in the evening of a very 
 stormy and tempestuous day. The King himself, with a 
 small train, rode to the top of the Castle hill, Varney, the 
 Knight Marshal, who was standard-bearer, carrying the 
 
 r 2 Pari. Hist. 1369. ■ Rush, iv 723. 
 
A.D. 1642. PRESENT AT BATTLE OF EDGE HILL. 25 
 
 standard, which was then erected in that place with little 
 other ceremony than the sound of drains and trumpets. Melan- 
 choly men observed many ill presages about that time. There 
 was not one regiment of foot yet brought thither, so that the 
 train-bands which the sheriff had drawn together, were all the 
 strength the King had for his person and the guard of the 
 standard. There appeared no conflux of men in obedience to 
 the proclamation. The arms and ammunition were not yet 
 come from York, and a general sadness covered the whole 
 town. The standard was blown down the same night it had 
 been set up, by a very strong and unruly wind, and could 
 not be fixed again in a day or two till the tempest was 
 allayed.'" 
 
 To gain time, a pacific message, prepared by Hyde, was 
 sent by the King to the two Houses, and their intemperate 
 rejection of it operated powerfully in his favour, and " levies 
 of men and all other preparations for the war incredibly ad- 
 vanced." I do not find that any gentleman of the long robe 
 took arms on the King's side in this memorable straggle, with 
 the exception of Lord Keeper Littleton's volunteer corps at 
 Oxford, and they probably would have met with little coun- 
 tenance from Prince Eupert and the cavalier officers. Hyde 
 made himself useful by obtaining large supplies of plate to be 
 coined into money from the two Universities, by raising loans 
 for the King from persons of wealth in the midland counties, 
 and, preceding the march of the army, by trying to induce the 
 mayors of towns and other civil authorities to espouse the 
 royal cause. 
 
 He was present at the battle of Edge Hill, but placed in the 
 rear among the non-combatants, — the King's two sons, the 
 Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, then boys of twelve 
 and nine years of age, being intrusted to his care. It is said 
 that the day after the fight, when the King, notwithstanding 
 his severe losses, might have marched to London, both Falk- 
 land and Hyde dissuaded him from this step, "not desiring to 
 obtain that by a pure victory which they wished to be got by 
 a dutiful submission upon modest, speedy, and peaceable 
 terms." u But his approach to the .metropolis would have 
 roused a dangerous resistance to him there, while the Earl of 
 Essex would have hung upon his rear,— and he probably fol- 
 lowed prudent advice in marching to Oxford, "the only city 
 that he could say was certainly at his devotion." x Here he 
 
 * Hist. Reb. b. v. u Sir P. Warwick's Mem. x Hist. Reb. b. vi. 
 
26 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXV. 
 
 established and retained the seat of his civil government till 
 the termination of the war. 
 
 Through the instrumentality of Hyde a negotiation was now 
 opened with the parliament, and there was a very favourable 
 prospect of a settlement ; but it was suddenly terminated by 
 the treacherous march of the King to Brentford, — after which 
 "all thoughts of treaty were dashed; they who most desired 
 it did not desire to be in the King's mercy ; and they now be- 
 lieved, by his Majesty making so much haste towards them 
 after their offer of a treaty, that he meant to have surprised 
 and taken vengeance of them without distinction." y 
 
 The attempt at negotiation was resumed ineffectually during 
 the winter, and in the spring both parties prepared 
 actively for operations in the field. Now, at last, 
 Hyde was installed in a responsible office. A letter from the 
 King to the Queen had been intercepted and published by the 
 Parliament, in which, after expressing an intention to make 
 Secretary Nicholas Master of the Wards, he adds, " And then 
 I must make Ned Hyde Secretaiy of State, for the truth is, T 
 can trust nobody else." The King having procured a printed 
 copy of this letter, himself showed it to Hyde, and proposed 
 immediately to carry the plan into effect. Hyde refused, 
 unless with the full consent of Nicholas, who represented that 
 the change would be disadvantageous to him. Luckily at this 
 time the office of Master of the Bolls, which Colepeper greatly 
 coveted, became vacant by the death of Sir Charles Caesar. 
 Colepeper willingly gave up his office of Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer for the Bolls, of which he never enjoyed but the 
 title, Speaker Lenthal being soon in possession of its jurisdic- 
 tion and emoluments, — and Hyde was made Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, was sworn of the Privy Council, and received the 
 honour of knighthood. 
 
 He exerted himself with great energy in his office, and was 
 in hopes of a favourable issue to the contest — when the battle 
 of Newbury was fought, in which fell Lord Falkland, "a 
 loss," he says, " which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and 
 no success of fortune could repair." z 
 
 The office of Secretary of State, now vacant by the untimely 
 death of this distinguished man, was offered to Hyde, but ho 
 
 y Hist. Reb. Passage suppressed in 1st character of Lord Falkland. The writer must 
 
 edition. have had high qualities himself who could so 
 
 z Hist. Reb. iv. There is nothing in the enthusiastically admire, so delicately discri- 
 
 writings of Claret don which gives us so high ruinate, and so beautifully ielineate the higb 
 
 in opinion of his head and his heart, as his qualities of another. — Lif<\ i. 42 — 50 
 
A.D. 1643. KING'S PROPOSAL TO DISSOLVE PARLIAMENT. 27 
 
 declined it in favour of Lord Digby, who, it was thought, 
 might be more competent to conduct negotiations then 
 pending with Harcourt, the French ambassador. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer was soon overwhelmed 
 with grief by the decline of the royal cause — which he mainly 
 ascribed to the misconduct of the royalists, both in the military 
 and civil departments. " Those under the King's command 
 grew insensibly unto all the havoc, disoider, and impiety with 
 which they had reproached the rebels, and they into great dis- 
 cipline, diligence, and sobriety. Thus one side seemed to 
 fight for monarchy with the weapons of confusion, and the 
 other to destroy the King with all the principles of monarchy." 
 Hyde himself, notwithstanding his talents and services, was 
 regarded with envy by ignorant, profligate, high-born cavaliers 
 as an upstart. The recollection of the slights and indignities 
 which he now suffered afterwards drew from him these cutting 
 observations : — " It were to be wished that persons of the 
 greatest birth and fortune would take that care of themselves, 
 by education, industry, literature, and a love of virtue, to sur- 
 pass all other men in knowledge, and all other qualifications 
 necessary for great actions, as far as they do in quality and 
 titles : that Princes, out of them, might always choose men fit 
 for all employments and high trust ; which would exceedingly 
 advance their service, where the reputation and respect of the 
 person carries somewhat with it that facilitates the business. 
 And it cannot well be expressed or comprehended by any 
 who have not felt the weight and burden of the envy which 
 naturally attends upon these promotions which seem to be per 
 saltum, how great straits and difficulties such ministers are 
 forced to wrestle with." a 
 
 About this time Hyde had to resist a bold measure, which 
 the King at the suggestion of some hot-headed courtiers 
 strongly urged,— to issue a proclamation for dissolving the 
 parliament. His Majesty said, " that he thought there was 
 too much honour done to those rebels at Y\ estminster in all 
 his declarations, therefore he knew no reason why he should 
 not forbid them to sit, or meet any more there ; he knew 
 learned men of an opinion, that the act for the continuance of 
 the parliament was void from the beginning, and that it is not 
 in the power of the King to bar himself from dissolving it." 
 The Chancelloi of the Exchequer answered with irresistible 
 force, " that not only the people in general, but those of his 
 
 a Hist. Reb. b. to. 
 
28 LORD CHANCELLOR CLAREXDOX. Chap. LXXV 
 
 own party, and even of his Council, would take more unibrago 
 upon suck a step than upon any one particular that had hap 
 pened since the beginning of the war; that his forbidding 
 them to meet at Westminster, would not make one man the 
 less meet there ; and that if he had power to dissolve this par- 
 liament on such grounds, he might likewise repeal all other 
 acts made by this parliament, whereof some were very pre- 
 cious to the people ; and that such a proclamation would 
 confirm all the fears and jealousies which had been infused 
 into them, and would trouble many of his own true sub- 
 jects." 
 
 The noble historian insinuates, that this advice came from 
 Herbert the Attorney-General, against whom he ever shows 
 his grudge. After some conferences with Mr. Attorney, the 
 scheme was abandoned. b 
 
 Hyde continued to struggle vigorously amidst all difficulties 
 and discouragements, and in the hope of producing 
 a scene where talent and merit might have the as- 
 cendency, he prevailed on f ae King to call a parliament at 
 Oxford, as a rival to that at Westminster. He was now for a 
 time in the important position of leader of the House of Com- 
 mons, being decidedly the first in eloquence and a knowledge 
 of parliamentary business of the 1 20 Commoners who assem- 
 bled in Christ Church Hall. As Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 he opened his budget, detailing the mischiefs which • arose 
 from raising money by unlawful means, and under the plea of 
 warlike licence ; and showing the necessity for finding more 
 regular methods for raising supplies to carry on the war. He 
 did not, however, venture to propose that any tax should be 
 formally imposed, — which might have speedily raised an awk- 
 ward question as to the regularity and powers of this Oxford 
 parliament, while another was sitting under a law to which 
 the King had given his assent. He proposed, therefore, that, 
 under the authority of the two Houses, as testified by letters 
 to be signed by their respective Speakers, a contribution 
 should be levied on the wealthy, with their own consent, in 
 the nature of a property tax ; and that the royalists should 
 imitate the tax lately imposed by an ordinance of the two 
 Westminster Houses, on wine, beer, and other articles of 
 household consumption, — the origin of our excise. These 
 
 b Life of Clarendon, i. 169. and then be utterly abolished,—" which," 
 
 c Both parliaments declared that this tax adds Clarendon, " few wise men believed It 
 should only continue to toe end cf the war, would ever be." 
 
A.D. 1645. NEGOTIATIONS AT UXBRIDGE. 2 C J 
 
 " ways and means " were agreed to, and produced a consider- 
 able supply. 
 
 The other great measure attempted by this Convention, — 
 the opening a negotiation for peace, proved abortive, — the two 
 Houses at Westminster refusing to receive any communica- 
 tion till they were recognised as a parliament, — and when 
 they had been so recognised, complaining that " the persons 
 now assembled at Oxford, who, contrary to their duty, had 
 deserted the parliament, were put on an equal footing with 
 the two Houses convened according to the known and fun- 
 damental laws of the kingdom." This " little Senate," to 
 which Hyde gave laws, concluded its session by a resolu- 
 tion, " that the Lords and Commons remaining at West- 
 minster have rejected all offers of peace and treaty ; and that 
 for having made war against the King, counterfeited the 
 King's Great Seal, and abetted the Scotch invasion, they are 
 guilty of high treason, and ought to be proceeded against as 
 traitors to the King and kingdom." d The desire for peace 
 and the jealousy about religion, manifested by some of the 
 members, had given much uneasiness, and the prorogation was 
 a great relief to the King, and still more to the Queen, who 
 hated the very name of parliament. 
 
 During the campaign which followed, in which Prince 
 Eupert once more, at Marston Moor, lost a great battle by 
 his blind impetuosity, Hyde remained at Oxford trying in 
 vain to establish some order and regularity in the administra- 
 tion of the King's affairs. He received a flattering mark of 
 his importance, in being specially exempted from pardon in 
 some new demands made by the parliament at Westminster, 
 in the autumn of 1 644. 
 
 In the beginning of the following year Hyde was the lead- 
 ing commissioner on the part of the King at the 
 treaty of Uxbridge, the last time the two parties nego- 
 tiated on any thing like equal terms, — subsequent events soon 
 placing the King as a prisoner in the hands of his subjects. 
 Seeing that there never would be another chance of pacification 
 on the basis of preserving a limited monarchy, his exertions 
 were now stupendous. " They that had been most inured to 
 business had not in their lives ever undergone so great fatigue 
 for twenty days together as at that treaty. The Commis- 
 sioners seldom parted during that whole time till two or three 
 o'clock in the morning. Besides, they were obliged to sit up 
 
 d Rush. v. 565. Ante. 
 
30 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI. 
 
 later wlio were to prepare such papers as were directed for the 
 next day, and to write letters to Oxford," e — a task which fell 
 chiefly on Hyde himself. He was particularly charged with 
 the church question, and peremptorily refusing the entire 
 abolition of episcopacy, he expressed a willingness to modify 
 the church establishment, and disallow pluralities with cure of 
 souls, — that the Bishop should keep constant residence in his 
 diocese, and preach in some church within it every Sunday, — 
 and that 100,00(V. should be raised out of Bishops' lands for 
 the public service/ 
 
 On this and every other point the parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners were inflexible, so that a constitutional settlement was 
 impossible, and another trial of strength in the field was to 
 determine whether England should fall under the sway of an 
 absolute monarch or of a republic. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 CONTIXUATION OF LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS RETURN FROM 
 
 THE EMBASSY TO MADRID. 
 
 Before the expected crisis arrived, Hyde's position was 
 Feb 1645 en ^ re ^y altered. The King wished to remove 
 Prince Charles, now a spoiled youth of fourteen, 
 from the Court (as he said), "to unboy him," and the pre- 
 sence of some person of exalted rank was greatly wanted in 
 the west of England, w r here Goring, Granville, and other royal 
 generals were quarrelling for the command, and exposing 
 themselves to loss and discredit. An association of the gentry 
 and yeomanry of the four western counties had petitioned that 
 the Prince should be placed at their head, and notwith- 
 standing his tender* years he was invested with two commis- 
 sions, one as General of all the King's forces in England, and 
 another as Commander of the western association. But he 
 was to be guided in ever} 7 thing by a mixed council of 
 military officers and civilians, and among the latter was Sir 
 Edward Hyde, on whose prudence and attachment the King 
 placed such reliance. Although he was still to retain his 
 
 e Hist Reb. b. v. I Hist. Reb. b. v. Rush. v. 892. 
 
A.D. 1645-46. KING ORDERS THE PRINCE TO FRANCE. 31 
 
 office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, he very little relished 
 this new appointment, but he deemed it his duty to submit. 
 I suspect that the real cause of his removal was the dislike 
 entertained for him by the more violent cavaliers, and by the 
 Queen, who considered him little better than a Roundhead. 
 From this time he had no influence whatever in the general 
 direction of the King's affairs. 
 
 On the 5th of March, 1645, the Prince and his adviser took 
 leave of Charles, now fated to destruction, and neither of them 
 ever saw him more. They journeyed on to Bristol, then a royal 
 garrison, where they stayed a considerable time, while efforts 
 were vainly made to allay the jealousies of the rival Generals. 
 The Council, at the suggestion of Hyde, wrote to the King 
 proposing that the Prince should be recalled ; but before an 
 answer was received, news arrived of the disastrous defeat at 
 Naseby, and there was no safety for the royal family in the 
 centre of England. Fairfax advanced towards Bristol, and it 
 was necessary to conduct the Prince farther to the west. Had 
 he remained, he must have been taken prisoner on the shameful 
 surrender of that city by Prince Rupert. 
 
 The King, w T ho had retreated into South Wales, now anxious 
 for the safety of his son, summoned Hyde and Colepeper, who 
 was likewise of the Prince's Council, to repair to him. The 
 former was confined to his bed by illness, but the latter joined 
 Charles at Brecknock, and brought back from him a mandate 
 addressed to the Prince in these words : " My pleasure is, 
 whensoever you find yourself in apparent danger of falling into 
 the rebels' hands, that you convey yourself into France, and 
 there to be under your mother's care, who is to have the abso- 
 lute full power of your education in all things except reli- 
 gion." Hyde, who was always at enmity either openly or 
 secretly with the Queen, and who on public grounds dreaded 
 the consequences of her influence over her son, prevailed upon 
 the Council to write a letter of expostulation, in which, while 
 assuring the King that nothing should be omitted to save the 
 Prince from falling into the hands of the Parliament, they 
 besought that a place of refuge might be left to their dis- 
 cretion, and that at all events Ireland or Scotland might be 
 preferred to France. In the mean time, under colour March, 
 of giving some directions as Chancellor of the Exche- 1646 - 
 quer respecting the duty of customs, he went to Falmouth, 
 and th 3re secured a vessel to be ready at any moment for the 
 escape of the Prince and his attendants. 
 
32 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI 
 
 The King wrote back a peremptory order that the Prince 
 " should quit the kingdom ; that he should not go to Scotland 
 or Ireland ; that he should go if possible to Denmark, and if 
 
 not thither, rather to France or Holland." There were no 
 means of reaching Denmark, and from Holland the Prince 
 would have been sure to be transferred to France and placed 
 under the dominion of his mother, whereby a settlement of the 
 nation would become impossible. Hyde and his colleagues, 
 who now had the Prince in their care at Tavistock, ad<; 
 another remonstrance to the King, assuring him ' ; that no- 
 thing but his commands should put the Prince in the power 
 of the Parliament, but also telling him how strongly the 
 followers of the Prince were disinclined that he should quit 
 the kingdom ; that many who were faithful would rather 
 him in the hands of the enemy than in France ; and that the 
 Council must advise that he continue still within the King's 
 dominions, but if occasion required they would transport him 
 to Scilly or to Jersey." At Truro they received an answer by 
 which Charles acquiesced in their views, but reiterated the 
 command that the Prince should leave England whenever 
 there was serious hazard of his being captured by the parli- 
 amentary forces. 
 
 The victorious Fairfax was now on the borders of Cornwall, 
 and intelligence was received by the Council of a design to 
 seize the Prince's person, " to which they had reason to believe 
 that some of his own servants were not strangers." s They 
 withdrew him to Pendennis Castle, but that was no safe 
 asylum ; for. on the 2nd of March, they learned from fugi- 
 tives that Fairfax had taken ] -ion of Bodmin. That 
 night, about ten o'clock, the Prince, attended by Hyde and 
 others of his suite, embarked in the vessel that had been pre- 
 pared for his escape, and in the afternoon of the second day 
 arrived safely in Scilly. Here they found nothing but misery 
 and destitution, and ;i Colepeper was sent into France to ac- 
 quaint the Queen with his Highness being at Scilly, with the 
 wants and incomrnodities of the place, and to desire supply 
 of men and monies for the defence thereof, and the support of 
 his own person." h 
 
 The Prince and his attendants remained in Scilly till the 
 16th of April, sometimes almost in a state of starvation, for 
 they had only a scanty supply of provisions from Cornwall and 
 from Normandy. They were likewise again in great danger of 
 
 8 Hist. R*b. o. t. b ibid. 
 
A.D. 1646. THE PRINCE JOINS THE QUEEN IN PARIS. 33 
 
 captivity. Lord Hopton, the King's brave but unfortunate 
 general, who commanded the remnant of the royal army in the 
 west, having been obliged to capitulate, an expedition was 
 fitted out to pursue the Prince ; a summons to surrender to 
 the Parliament was sent in ; and a hostile fleet of above 
 twenty sail was seen hovering round the island. Happily, a 
 violent storm arose, during which no ship could keep the sea, 
 and the immediate danger was over. As soon as the storm had 
 subsided, the Prince and Hyde set sail for Jersey, where they 
 arrived in safety. 
 
 The great struggle now was, whether the Prince should re- 
 main at Jersey, or cross over to France. The Queen resorted 
 to every artifice to get him into her power ; and knowing that 
 Hyde would never consent to this, she sent him by Colepeper 
 a crafty letter directed to him at Scilly, intimating the friendly 
 disposition of the French Court, " if the Prince, in his way to 
 Jersey, should be necessitated by contrary winds or the danger 
 of the Parliament shipping, to touch in France." Hyde caused 
 representations to be made to her of the injury likely to arise 
 to the King's affairs from the Prince going to reside in France, 
 — assuring her that he was in perfect safety at Jersey ; but 
 she contrived to get from the uxorious King a written autho- 
 rity, signed with his own hand, empowering her to join his 
 " positive commands" to hers that the Prince should repair U> 
 her immediately. 151 
 
 After the King's flight from Oxford, and while between him, 
 now a prisoner, and the victorious Parliament, negotiations 
 were pending which possibly might have led to a settlement, 
 if confidence had been placed in his sincerity (for higher terms 
 were not asked than at Uxbridge), — Pienrietta, with a cer- 
 tainty of offending every party in the state, and at the risk of 
 raising the suspicion of a plot between the royalists and Car- 
 dinal Mazarine, sent over Lord Jermyn, her favourite, as the 
 bearer of positive orders in her own name and the King's, that 
 the Prince should forthwith join her at Paris. Hyde could 
 detain him no longer, but refused to accompany him, — seeing 
 that in France he himself must be utterly without power, or 
 influence, or the capacity to render any service to the King, or 
 the royal family, or his country. He prevailed on Lord Capel 
 and Lord Plopton, two other members of the Council, who 
 concurred in his views, to join him in a respectful letter to the 
 King, justifying their conduct. 
 
 k Clar. Pap. ii. 230 
 VOL. IV. D 
 
31 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI, 
 
 Now comes that period of Clarendon's life which to the vulgar 
 a.d. 1646— eye appears disastrous, but to which chiefly he owes his 
 1647. celebrity. Had he flourished in quiet and prosperous 
 
 times, had he been regularly promoted from being Attorney-Ge- 
 neral to the woolsack, and held the Great Seal till he died, — he 
 might have been surrounded with luxury and flattery while he 
 lived, he might have left titles and fortune to his family, and 
 he might have been quoted in the Court of Chancery as a great 
 Equity Judge, — but he would only have been high in the 
 vulgar line of professional lawyers. Who would exchange the 
 reputation of Clarendon for that of Guilford, or even of Not- 
 tingham or of Hardwicke ? 
 
 He remained in this sequestered island above two years, — 
 having entirely sacrificed his profession, — without office or 
 employment, — without the occupation and excitement now 
 afforded by parliamentary opposition to the leaders of a dis- 
 comfited party, — even without the comforts and solaces of 
 domestic life. But instead of indulging in despondence, or in 
 idleness, or in frivolous amusements, he employed his time 
 with well-directed industry and vigour, and he rendered his 
 name immortal. Seeing that the struggle in which he had 
 been engaged was the most important that ever had occurred 
 in English history, and knowing that it must be interesting to 
 all future generations of Englishmen, he had long resolved, for 
 his own fair fame and for the benefit of his country, to become 
 its historian. This purpose was strengthened as he saw the 
 royal cause decline, from the apprehension that the domina- 
 tion of the opposite faction would taint the sources of historic 
 truth. So intent had he become on his object that he began 
 his great work the moment he set his foot on the rock of 
 Scilly, and he seriously applied himself to it amidst the dis- 
 tractions and difficulties of his short and anxious sojourn there, 
 — in danger if taken prisoner by the forces of the Parliament 
 of being brought to trial as a malignant, — and deeply occupied 
 in counteracting the selfish plans of Queen Henrietta Maria, 
 by which she was injuring the royal cause, and cutting off all 
 hope of a happy settlement. Now released from other en- 
 grossing duties, he earnestly and devotedly applied himself to 
 his literary undertaking, — of which we can distinctly trace 
 the progress as well as the commencement. He had with him 
 original papers and memoranda which he had been some time 
 collecting, and he anxiously taxed his memory respecting 
 events which had come under his own observation. He en- 
 
A.D. 1647. WRITES HIS HISTORY OF THE REBELLION. 35 
 
 deavoured, by application in various quarters, to supply his 
 deficiency of materials with respect to military operations and 
 distant transactions. He wrote to Lord \\ itherington, the 
 friend of the Marquis of Newcastle, entreating from both of 
 them a narration of those affairs in which they had borne a 
 part. From Lord Bristol he asked information respecting the 
 treaty of Berwick, the Great Council of the Peers at \ork, 
 and that nobleman's own commitment by the Parliament. To 
 Lord Digby he wrote: — "I pray let your secretaries col- 
 lect all material passages concerning Ireland you may think 
 fit to impart to me. I would be glad you would yourself 
 collect as many particulars of Count Harcourt's negotiation 
 in England, of Duke Hamilton's commitment, and of the 
 Marquess of Montrose's managing in Scotland, and any other 
 things you imagine conducing to my work." He placed 
 great reliance on Secretary Nicholas, to whom he says, " you 
 will by all your diligence, intercourse, and dexterity, procure 
 me such materials for my Hist or}' as you know necessary, — 
 which I take to be so much your work that if I fail in it, I 
 will put marginal notes into the History that shall reproach 
 you for want of contribution. By your care I must be sup- 
 plied with all the acts of countenance and confederacy which 
 have passed from Prance, Holland, and Spain." 
 
 His application to Colepeper is particularly interesting, 
 from the allusion to Falkland, and the confidence which the 
 writer displays in his own powers. After asking him for his 
 recollections of Edge Hill, he says, " The like care I expect 
 from you concerning the seige of Gloucester, the raysing y* 
 seige and retriete, the oversight there, the quick march after. 
 and y e first battle of Xewbury, where wee lost deare Falkland, 
 whom y e next age shall be taught to valew more than if present did.''' 
 
 He thus Communicated his intention to Charles I., now in 
 the power of the Parliament, but allowed considerable liberty 
 of correspondence, and still treated with respect. "I flatter 
 myself with an opinion that I am doing your Majesty some 
 service in this island whilst I am preparing the story of your 
 sufferings, that posterity may tremble at the reading of what 
 the present age blushes not to execute." The King took the 
 most lively interest in the work, and contributed a narrative 
 of all important matters between the time when Hyde quitted 
 Oxford to attend the Prince in the west, and his own escape 
 to the Scottish camp. The expectation of farther assistance 
 from the same quarter was disappointed, as we learn from a 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI 
 
 letter written b} r Hyde, in December, 1647, in which he 
 says, — " Your Majesty's sudden remove from Hampton Court 
 hath for the present taken away the opportunity of deriving 
 those materials which your Majesty graciously intimated by 
 Mr. Secretary Nicholas you intended for me, which renewed 
 my courage when I was even ready to faint for want of some 
 supply." But from Prince Charles he unexpectedly received 
 useful memorials of the campaigns of Prince Rupert. 
 
 He devoted not less than ten hours a day to his work, — 
 being generally employed three hours a day in writing, and 
 the rest of his time in examining authorities and collating 
 materials. From the unspeakable advantage of having a great 
 and worthy object to pursue, he not only escaped the tedium 
 which must otherwise have devoured him ; but, with much to 
 moilify and alarm him, he preserved equanimity and even 
 cheerfulness. . He thus describes his course of life at Jersey, 
 till he was left in entire solitude : " Whilst the Lords Capel and 
 Hopton stayed there, they lived and kept house together in 
 St. Hilary's, which is the chief town of the island, where, 
 having a chaplain of their own, they had prayers every day in 
 the church at 1 1 of the clock in the morning ; till which hour 
 they enjoyed themselves in their chambers, according as they 
 thought fit, the Chancellor 111 betaking himself to the con- 
 tinuance of the history which he had begun in Scilly, and 
 spending most of his time at that exercise. The other two 
 walked or rode abroad or read, as they were disposed : but at 
 the hour of prayers they always met, and then dined together 
 at the Lord Hopton's lodgings, which was the best .house, 
 they being lodged at several houses with convenience enough. 
 Their table was maintained at their joint expense — only for 
 dinners, they never using to sup, but met always upon the 
 sands in the evening to walk, after going to the castle to Sir 
 George Carteret, who treated them with extraordinary kind- 
 ness and civility." n 
 
 After a few months he was deprived of the society of his 
 
 friends, — Lord Capel leaving Jersey for Holland, and 
 
 ' Lord Hopton for Normandy, with a view to their 
 
 return to England. He was too obnoxious to the Parliament 
 
 to venture to put himself in its power, and he was too poor to 
 
 m Our historian shows his fondness for he had been once Chancellor of the Excbe- 
 
 pompous appellations (for which he was quer to Charles I. when there was no reve*iu«: 
 
 ridiculed), by thus always designating him- to look after. 
 
 self when be was in exile in Jersey, because n Life, i. 239. 
 
A.D. 1647-48. HE LEAVES JERSEY. 37 
 
 send for his wife and children, who were sheltered by relations 
 in Wiltshire. Speaking of Lady Hyde at this time, he says, 
 " She bears her part with miraculous constancy and courage, 
 which truly is an unspeakable comfort to me." ° 
 
 He now left thr? town of St. Hilary's, and, under the pro- 
 tection of Carteret, constructed for himself some con- 
 venient rooms among the ruins of an old castle, and 
 over his door he set up his arms with this inscription, " Bene 
 vixit qui bene latuit." 
 
 Like most authors, he was occasionally discouraged by the 
 difficulties he met with, saying that he wished he had never 
 begun the work, and that he was determined to lay it aside, 
 — but it made steady progress, and in seven months he got as 
 far as the erecting of the royal standard at Nottingham. To 
 tune his mind to historical composition, and to improve his 
 taste, he read over Livy and Tacitus, and almost all the works 
 of Cicero. He likewise availed himself of the opportunity of 
 improving himself in the French language, which he had 
 hitherto neglected. 
 
 His studies were interrupted, first by a report that Lord 
 Jermyn, the Queen's favourite, had engaged to deliver up 
 Jersey and Guernsey to the French for a sum of money, rather 
 than submit to which he patriotically agreed with Carteret 
 that they would call in the assistance of the Parliament — and 
 afterwards by the preparations of the Parliament forcibly to 
 reduce these islands to subjection ; which alarmed him so much 
 for his personal safety, that he made his will, wrote a most 
 tender letter to his wife, to be delivered to her when he should 
 be no more, and gave directions respecting his papers and the 
 publication of his "History of the Eebellion." 
 
 But all these dangers passed over, and he remained un- 
 molested in his retreat at Jersey till the month of 
 June, 1648. Early in that year he had received the 
 King's commands by Lord Cape! that he should attend the 
 Prince whenever required by the Queen, and the King had 
 directed the Queen to summon him as soon as the Prince, ac- 
 cording to a plan agreed upon, was to quit France. In May a 
 letter came to him from the Queen, requiring him to wait upon 
 the Prince at Paris on a day then gone by. He immediately 
 looked out for the means of sale transport, and bidding adieu 
 to the island where he had spent his time so creditably, so 
 usefully, and so agreeably, he crossed over to Dieppe, and 
 
 ° Clar. rap. ii. 310. 
 
38 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI. 
 
 proceeding to Kouen, he there found his old colleagues, Lord 
 Bristol, Lord Cottington, and Secretary Nicholas, who had 
 received similar orders. 
 
 A little before this, seventeen sail of English ships of war, 
 lying in the Thames, under a fit of returning loyalty, had de- 
 clared against the Parliament, and, displacing their Admiral, 
 had sailed to Holland ; and the Prince of Wales, posting to 
 Calais, had embarked there to join them, and had been ac- 
 knowledged as their commander. Hyde and Cottington, 
 receiving this intelligence, hastened back to Dieppe. Here 
 they found a French frigate, which conducted them to Dunkirk, 
 where they heard that the Prince with the fleet had entered 
 the river Thames, in hopes of exciting a popular movement in 
 favour of his family. They were eager to participate in this 
 enterprise, and Marshal Kanzau, the Spanish Governor of 
 Dunkirk, furnished them with a vessel to carry them across to 
 the coast of England. Unluckily, they were becalmed and 
 boarded by pirates from Ostend, who, though pretending to 
 have a commission from the King of Spain, " observed no 
 rules or laws of nations." They stripped and rifled the passen- 
 gers, taking from Lord Cottington to the value of 1000/., and 
 from Hyde 200?. in money, and all his clothes and linen, and 
 then carried them prisoners to Ostend. 
 
 The two Englishmen, being set at liberty, complained to 
 the law for redress, and they were surprised as well as irritated 
 to find that no effectual steps were taken to arrest the male- 
 factors or restore their stolen property, — till they heard that 
 the piratical ships were the private property of the Governor 
 and magistrates of Ostend, who had divided the spoil. They 
 were obliged to be satisfied with 100 pistoles to discharge the 
 debts they had contracted in the town, and to carry them on 
 their journey. The Prince's naval expedition had failed, and 
 being obliged to retire before the fleet of the Parliament, 
 commanded by the Earl of Warwick, he was then in Holland 
 Hyde rejoined him at the Hague. 
 
 Now arose those bickerings in the exiled Court to which 
 ,„,„ we have referred in the Life of Lord Keeper Herbert, 
 
 A.D. 1649. ■*- 
 
 who is so strongly charged by Hyde with having 
 fomented and continued them. p A temporary calm was pro- 
 duced by the astounding intelligence of the execution of 
 Charles I., — by the exiles formally acknowledging Owles II. 
 as his successor, — and by the ceremony of swearing in the old 
 
 P Ante, vol. iii. p. 404 et seq. 
 
A.D. 1649. HIS EMBASSY TO SPAIN. 39 
 
 Councillors, with the addition of Secretary Long, of the Privy 
 Council to the new Sovereign. But Hyde soon after had great 
 difficulty in preventing a duel between Lord Cottington and 
 Prince Rupert. He himself had a violent altercation with the 
 Earl of Lauderdale, who would only agree to receive Charles 
 as King in Scotland, on condition of all enemies to the Cove- 
 nant being left behind, — and he was rendered unhappy by the 
 apprehension of the Great Seal being given to Herbert, whose 
 abilities and services he justly considered much inferior to his 
 own, but whose pretensions were supported by Prince Rupert 
 and others, on the ground of his high birth, — of his having 
 filled the office of Attorney-General, — and of his great pro- 
 fessional practice and experience. The heartburning on this 
 subject was allayed for a time by an injunction from the Queen 
 mother, to which her son promised obedience, that no new 
 appointment to any state office should take place for the pre- 
 sent, nor till she should give her consent. 
 
 The murder of Dorislaus, the ambassador of the Parliament 
 at the Hague, having greatly alienated the States of Holland 
 from the cavalier cause, and Cardinal Mazarine beginning to 
 fear and to court Cromwell, — the only foreign country from 
 which aid could now be expected was Spain. Lord Cottington 
 had been ambassador there before he was made Lord High 
 Treasurer, and from his knowledge of the Court of Madrid, 
 where republican principles were .held in great abhorrence, 
 he held out a hope of powerful assistance from that quarter to 
 effect the Kings restoration, — particularly through the instru- 
 mentality of the Irish Roman Catholics, of whom there was a 
 large number in the Spanish service. He offered himself to 
 undertake the mission, if Hyde would accompany him as his 
 colleague. Little could rationally be expected in such a service 
 except mortification and danger ; but Hyde did not feel that 
 he was at liberty to decline it, and he could not be more 
 wretched, or more useless, than in his attendance upon Charles 
 in his wanderings. " In the end he told the Lord Cottington 
 that he would only be passive in this point, and refer it entirely 
 to him, if he thought fit, to dispose the King to like it ; and if 
 the King approved it, and commended it as a thing he thought 
 for his service, he would submit to his command." 
 
 Charles approving, " soon afterwards publicly declared his 
 resolution to send the Lord Cottington and the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer his ambassadors extraordinary into Spain, and 
 commanded them to prepare their own commission and in- 
 
40 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI. 
 
 stractions, and to begin their journey as soon as was pos- 
 sible." 
 
 Their secret instructions were to press for the recognition 
 of Charles as the legitimate King of England ; to try to effect 
 a league offensive and defensive between him and the King of 
 Spain ; to raise a loan, for which security was to be given 
 under the Great Seal of England, in any fashion that might 
 be desired ; and that, by way of concession, they should give 
 assurances of the King's resolutions of grace and favour towards 
 his Catholic subjects, and that they should offer all manner of 
 civilities to the Pope's nuncio at Madrid. 
 
 Hyde left the Hague in the end of May, and spent nearly 
 two years in this mission, which turned out to be the most 
 harassing and unprofitable portion of his life. After settling 
 his wife and family at Antwerp, visiting the Archduke and 
 the Duke of Lorraine at Brussels, and with difficulty raising a 
 small supply of money to defray the necessary expense of his 
 journey, he visited Charles at St. Germain's, and his mother 
 at Paris, and tried to make peace between them. At last he 
 reached St. Sebastian's, on the Spanish frontier. Here Cot- 
 tington and he met with their first rebuff, for the Corregidor 
 showed them a letter from the Secretary of State at Madrid, 
 ordering that when "the ambassadors of the Prince of Wales " 
 should arrive there, they should be received with all respect ; 
 but they should be instructed not to proceed till the King 
 of Spain's farther pleasure was made known to them, — and 
 in the passports handed to them they were designated as 
 " ambassadors of the Prince of Wales." They despatched a 
 remonstrance to Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish minister, 
 — desiring to know if their coming was unacceptable to his 
 Catholic Majesty, — in which case they would immediately re- 
 turn, — and desiring that, if they were received, it might be 
 in such a manner as was due to the King they represented. 
 An answer was sent imputing the designed insult to the neg- 
 ligence of a Secretary, and assuring them of a good welcome 
 from the Spanish King. But on their arrival at Alcavendas, 
 three leagues from Madrid, they found that no preparations 
 were made for their reception, and that the Spanish Court 
 wished them heartily at a distance — beginning to entertain 
 appi ehensions of the displeasure of the English parliament. To 
 avoid proclaiming to all Europe the ill usage they experienced 
 by now retreating, they privately entered Madrid, and, pre- 
 serving their incognito, took up their residence at the house of 
 
A.D. 1650. HIS EMBASSY TO SPAIN. 41 
 
 an English merchant well affected to their cause. On a fresh 
 representation to the niinister, a formal reception was pro- 
 mised, and in the mean time they were invited to tc umanients 
 and bull-fights, where places of honour were assigned to 
 them. 
 
 Intelligence arrived at Madrid that the Parliament was be- 
 coming unpopular and weak, and the promised re- 
 ception was accorded to the royalist ambassadors. 
 "The King q slightly moved his hat and bid them cover." 
 Their credentials being delivered, " he expressed," says Cla- 
 rendon, " a very tender sense of our King's condition, and 
 acknowledged that it concerned all Kings to join together for 
 the punishment of such an impious rebellion and parricide ; 
 and, if his own affairs would permit, he would be the first to 
 undertake it ; but that they could not but know how full his 
 hands were, and whilst he had so powerful an enemy to con- 
 tend with he could hardlv defend himself: but that Avhen 
 there should be a peace with France (which he desired), the 
 King, his sobrino (for so he called the King his nephew), 
 should find all he could expect from him ; in the mean time 
 he would be ready to do all that was in his power towards his 
 assistance and maintenance." r 
 
 But the dread of Cromwell, to whom Europe now began to 
 look, as the person who ould terminate the troubles in Eng- 
 land by military despotism, prevented any further notice being 
 taken of them — till Rupert, with his fleet, appeared upon the 
 coast of Spain, and despatched a letter to Hyde, desiring him 
 to obtain from the Court of Madrid "good reception for his 
 vessels in any Spanish port they might have occasion to enter." 
 The character of this unscrupulous warrior indicated imme- 
 diate danger, and letters were despatched that very night con- 
 veying the required directions to the Governors of all Spanish 
 ports on the ocean and within the straits, "with as many 
 friendlv clauses as could have been inserted if the Kino; had 
 been in possession of his whole empire ; — so great an influ- 
 ence a little appearance of power had upon their spirits : and 
 the ambassadors found they lived in another kind of air than 
 they had done ; and received every day visits from the Court 
 and from those in authority." 
 
 But Hvde and his colleague, before long, found themselves 
 again neglected, by reason of a storm which did great damage 
 to the fleet bearing the royal flag of England, and the arrival 
 
 1 Philip IV. r Hist. Reb. b. vi. 
 
42 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVI. 
 
 on the coast of Spain of a more powerful fleet equipped by the 
 Parliament, the commander of which menacingly warned the 
 Spanish government, " that he knew well how to do himself 
 right for any injury or discourtesy they might sanction." Not 
 only were orders issued to entertain his ships with all hospi- 
 tality, but he received a valuable ring from the King as a pro- 
 pitiatory offering. 
 
 Hyde and Cottington soon after got into still greater dis- 
 grace by the assassination at Madrid of Ascham, the diplomatic 
 agent of the Commonwealth. " They immediately sent a 
 letter to Don Luis de Haro to express the sense they had 
 of this unfortunate rash action, of which they hoped he did 
 believe if they had any notice or suspicion they would have 
 prevented." s 
 
 Although Don Luis disclaimed a belief so injurious, sus- 
 picion fell upon them, as they had warmly protested against 
 Ascham's reception, and one of his assassins was in their 
 service. However, there seems no reason to believe that 
 Hyde was at all privy to the affair. In a letter to Secretary 
 Nicholas he said, " This accident hath been very unfortu- 
 nate to our business, concerning which we were promised 
 to have positive resolutions within a few days, but we must 
 now sit still, without pressing them, till this matter be 
 concluded ; there having not wanted some malicious spirits 
 here, which would beget an opinion that we were privy 
 to this mad action, when, God knows, Ave ki ew not of 
 the man's being come to the town till we heard that he was 
 dead." l 
 
 The} T were again courted, and feted, and fed with fine 
 promises on news arriving that Charles II. had been received 
 and recognised as King of Scotland, — the Spaniards not being 
 aware of the insecurity of his tenure of power there, and not 
 understanding what was meant by his having been obliged 
 to deplore the wickedness 'of his father, and to declare that, 
 " detesting prelacy, he would henceforth have neither friends 
 nor enemies but such as were the friends or enemies of the 
 Covenant." But a despatch from Cardenas, the Spanish 
 resident in London, announcing to his government the decisive 
 
 • Hist. Peb. b. vi. lection of it caused several assassinations on 
 
 1 Clar. Pap. iii. 21. It is curious to con- the Continent by Englishmen of the cavalier 
 
 gider that during the heat of the civil war, party, as that of Dorislaus in Holland, of 
 
 there was not a single assassination in Eng- Ascham in Spain, of Lisle in Switzerland. 
 
 land ; but that when it was over, the recol- &c. 
 
\.D. 1651. FAILURE OF THE SPANISH EMBASSY. 43 
 
 victory gained by Cromwell at Dunbar, by which Scotland 
 was conquered, proved the final ruin of all the hopes of Hyde 
 and Cottington at Madrid. They had received instructions 
 from Charles to protract their stay, and they tried to 
 make it appear that this defeat would advance his 
 cause in England ; but the Spanish government placed no 
 faith in this explanation, and after many hints that their 
 continued attendance was unwelcome and fruitless, thev at 
 last received a formal message in the name of King Philip, 
 "that they had received answers to all they had pro- 
 posed, and were at liberty to depart, which his Catholic 
 Majesty desired they would do. since their presence in the 
 Court would be prejudicial to his affairs." They demanded 
 and obtained an interview with Don Luis de Haro, but 
 instead of being swayed by their remonstrances, " he pressed 
 them very plainly, and without any regard to the season of 
 the year, it being toward the end of January, to use all pos- 
 sible expedition for their departure, as a thing that even in 
 that respect did exceedingly concern the service of the King." 
 A day even was fixed by the Spanish government for their au- 
 dience of leave. 
 
 It is a sti iking fact, that at no Court in Europe was much 
 sympathy exhibited for the Stuarts, and in the middle of the 
 17th century there was no such coalition of Sovereigns in 
 support of royalty as was witnessed at the conclusion of the 
 18th century, when a republic was about to be established in 
 France. On the Continent, the contagion of republican 
 principles does not seem to have been at all dreaded, and the 
 English nation, being left to the entire management of their 
 own affairs, — first the parliament, and then Cromwell, were 
 cordially admitted into the community of European govern- 
 ments. 
 
 Thus terminated Hyde's most irksome residence of fifteen 
 months at Madrid. Besides the diplomatic disappointments 
 he encountered, his pecuniary resources were so low, that he 
 often found the greatest difficulty in providing for the per- 
 sonal wants of himself, and his wife and children left desti- 
 tute in a distant land. " All our money is gone," he writes, 
 " and let me never prosper if I know or can imagine how we 
 can get bread a month longer." u Again, " Greater neces- 
 sities are hardly felt by any men than we for the present un- 
 dergo, — such as have almost made me foolish ; I have not 
 
 u Jan. 6, 1650 
 
44 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVL 
 
 for my life been able to supply the miserable distresses of my 
 poor wife." x 
 
 Hvde found consolation in that love of study which was hia 
 best mend throughout his chequered life. His History waa 
 suspended for want of materials, but he now. assiduously 
 cultivated the Spanish language, initiated himself in Spanish 
 literature, and made himself famil'ar with Spanish laws and 
 customs/ He also here composed n devotional work, entitled 
 " Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David, 
 applied to the Troubles of this Time." 
 
 He had soon the affliction of losing the society of his col- 
 league Lord Cottington, who having no wife or children to 
 return to, being worn down by age and infirmity, being re- 
 conciled to the Roman Catholic Church in which he had been 
 educated, and sickening at the thought of being again plunged 
 into the civil and religious distractions of his native countiy, 
 resolved to spend the remainder of his days in Spain, and ob- 
 tained permission from the Spanish government to reside in a 
 private capacity at Valladolid. 2 
 
 Hyde accordingly had his audience of leave as sole ambas- 
 sador. He had conducted himself during his residence at 
 Madrid so decorously, so inoffensively, and notwithstanding his 
 narrow circumstances, with so much dignity, that he had made 
 a very favourable impression upon the Spaniards, which now 
 showed itself in spite of the usual selfish and timid policy of 
 the Court. " Hearing that he intended to repair to his family 
 at Antwerp, and stay there till he received other orders from 
 the King his master, they gave him all despatches thither 
 that might be of use to him in those parts. The King of 
 Spain himself used many gracious expressions to him at hi* 
 last audience, and sent afterwards to him a letter for the 
 Archduke Leopold, in which he expressed the good opinion 
 he had of the ambassador, and commanded that whilst he 
 should choose to reside in those parts under his government, 
 he should receive all respect and enjoy all privileges as an 
 ambassador : all which ceremonies, though they cost him 
 nothing, were of real benefit and advantage to him, for be- 
 sides the treatment he received from the Archduke himself in 
 
 x Aug. 16, 1650. and ecclesiastical polity," and I do not trace 
 
 y He must surely now have read Don in his writings any allusion to Cervantes. 
 
 Quixote in the original, but he says only that He does not appear to have had any taste for 
 
 " he made a collection of and read many of what we call light reading ; if he had, his 
 
 the best books which are extant in that Ian- History might have been a little less weighty. 
 
 guage, especially the histories of their civil * He died there in 1652, in his 77th year. 
 
A.D. 1651-52. SUMMONED TO PARIS. 45 
 
 Brussels, as ambassador, such directions or recommendations 
 were sent to the magistrates of Antwerp, that he enjoyed the 
 privilege of his chapel, and all the English, who were nu- 
 merous in that city, repaired thither with all freedom for their 
 devotion ; which liberty had never before been granted to any 
 man there." a 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 UONTIXUATION OF THE LIFE OF CLARENDON TILL THE GREAT SEAL WAS 
 
 DELIVERED TO HIM AT BRUGES. 
 
 Hyde left Madrid in March, 1651, and after a fatiguing 
 journey, performed chiefly on nrules, reached Paris. 
 Here he was received more graciously than usual by 
 Queen Henrietta, who was in a state of great anxiety from the 
 perils to which her son was exposed in Scotland. The ex- 
 ambassador then travelled on to Antwerp, where he had, for 
 some months, the exquisite enjoyment of living quietly in the 
 bosom of his family, although disturbed by the sad news of 
 the battle of Worcester, and under long suspense respecting 
 the fate of his young Sovereign. At last, news came of 
 Charles's miraculous escape and safe arrival in Normandy. 
 Hyde soon received a summons to repair to Paris, and on 
 Christmas- day, 1651, again took up his residence there as a 
 member of the exiled Court. All the former enmities, and 
 jealousies, and rivalries between the titular ministers now broke 
 out with fresh violence, the Queen recklessly inflaming and 
 exasperating them in her efforts to gain an ascendency 
 for herself. She was at the head of one party, and 
 Hyde of another. To strengthen herself, she tried to introduce 
 Sir John Berkeley into the Council, and to have him appointed 
 " Master of the Wards," an office depending upon the oppres- 
 sive military tenures which the parliament had abolished, and 
 to the abolition of which the late King, at several conferences, 
 had readily agreed. Hyde urged 4i that the King could not, 
 at the time, do a more ungracious thing, that would lose him 
 more the hearts and affections of the nobility and gentry of 
 
 a Hist. Reb. b. vi. 
 
46 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVII. 
 
 England, than in making a Master of the Wards in a time when 
 it would not be the least advantage to his Majesty or the 
 officer ; to declare that he resolved to insist upon that part 
 of his prerogative which his father had consented to part 
 with." This opposition succeeded, but rendered the Queen 
 still more hostile to Hyde. 
 
 In the next controversy between them, I must say it seems 
 to me that he was decidedly wrong, and that he displayed 
 those narrow-minded and bigoted principles, as an ultra-high- 
 church Episcopalian, which subsequently betrayed him into 
 serious errors, and even a sacrifice of good faith. The French 
 government, becoming more and more intolerant, would not 
 suffer any English strangers to have a place of worship in 
 Paris according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church 
 of England ; but at Charenton, in the suburbs, there was a 
 Huguenot chapel, where, the Edict of Nantes not being yet 
 repealed, the Protestant service was celebrated according to 
 law, and a very pious and learned divine ministered to a 
 most respectable congregation. The Queen declaring that, 
 notwithstanding her zeal for her own religion, she respected 
 the dying injunctions of her late husband, and was contented 
 that her son should remain a Protestant, consented to his going 
 to this chapel, as he could not be present at the celebration of 
 mass, and there was no other place of public worship for him 
 to attend. In answer to Hyde's opposition, she observed 
 " that Queen Elizabeth had greatly favoured the Huguenots-; 
 that they were recognised as a reformed church ; and that their 
 pastors had been admitted into the Church of England with- 
 out fresh ordination." But Hyde, who heartily disliked the Ro- 
 man Catholics, but much more any Protestant church that did 
 not rigidly adhere to the " Apostolic succession," declared with 
 much earnestness, " that whatever countenance or favour the 
 Crown or Church of England had heretofore shown to these 
 congregations, it was in a time when they carried themselves 
 with modesty towards both ; but that, of late, some of their 
 preachers had countenanced the doctrine that it might be 
 lawful to resist a King by arms, and had even inveighed 
 against Episcopacy; that the Queen, whose ulterior object 
 was the conversion of her son to Popery, intended to unsettle 
 his faith, and weaken his attachment to the only true re- 
 formed church, when he would be more accessible to her per- 
 suasions ; and that, from the King's going to Charenton, it 
 would be coucluded everywhere that he thought the Episco- 
 
A.D. 1652-53. DISSIPATION OF CHARLES. 47 
 
 palian profession and Presbyterian profession were indifferent, 
 which would be one of the most deadly wounds to the Church 
 of England which it had yet suffered." 
 
 This matter being debated in Council, Charles, who was 
 delighted to be entirely exempted from the restraint a .d. i65s— 
 of attending public worship, said with affected gra- 1653 - 
 vity (having probably first cast a sly look at Buckingham), 
 '* that upon the whole he thought the arguments of the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer preponderated, and that, out of 
 respect for that true Apostolical church to the safety of which 
 his blessed father died a martyr, he would not frequent the 
 heretical conventicle at Charenton." b He was thus at liberty, 
 without any interruption, to devote himself on Sundays to 
 Miss Lucy Walters and other ladies of the same stamp, in 
 whose society he now spent almost the whole of his time. 
 
 Plunged in the gaieties of Paris, he forgot the misfortunes 
 of his family, and lost sight of his three kingdoms, content if, 
 from any source, he could be supplied with money to defray 
 his personal expenses. Hyde often gave him excellent 
 general advice, which he received with good humour, and 
 neglected, — and all that he would promise with regard to 
 business was, ''that a part of every Friday (a day of penance J 
 he would employ in reading and answering letters on public 
 affairs." But the number and publicity of his amours at last 
 caused general scandal among his followers, and was reported 
 to his disadvantage in England. His character particularly 
 suffered from the utter worthlessness of Lucy Walters, who by 
 her arts had won his affections, who by her influence con- 
 tinued to exercise a powerful control over his easy temper, 
 and who was now the mother of a child she called his.— after- 
 wards the celebrated Duke of Monmouth. Hyde, assisted by 
 Ormond, interfered to dissolve this disgraceful connection, and 
 representing to Charles the injury which it did to the royal 
 cause at home, where the appearances at least of morality 
 
 b Hist. Reb. b. vi. Life of Clarendon, (L. he would not go to hear Principal Robertson 
 
 C.) 94. preach, unless he should take a tree for his 
 
 c A sincere friend to the Church of Eng- pulpit. The only arguments to support such 
 
 land, I cannot conceal my disapprobation of intolerance place those who use ihem at the 
 
 this horror of entering a Presbyterian place mercy of the Romanists, to whom, perhaps. 
 
 of worship, which we still occasionally meet they would be glad to be re-united. Very 
 
 with in the High Church party, — which in- different is the conduct of our beloved sove- 
 
 duced Hyde to advise that Charles should reign Queen Victoria, who, when in Scotland, 
 
 ather live like a hoathen, than attend public attends divine service in the church of ths 
 
 iforship in a French Protestant chapel, and parish in which for the time she is residing, 
 made Dr. Johnson say, when in Scotland, that 
 
48 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVJI. 
 
 were so highly respected, they prevailed upon him to separate 
 from her, and as he still renewed his intercourse with her, 
 they induced her, by an annuity of 400/., to repair with the 
 child to her native countiy. When she airived there she 
 called herself Charles's wife, and Cromwell, after keeping her 
 some time in the Tower, sent her back to Paris. But Hyde 
 had little more trouble with her, for her open lewdness was 
 such as to forfeit the royal favour, and she soon after died 
 disgracefully. Her son had been taken from her and placed 
 under the care of the Oratoriens at Paris. d 
 
 A plan was now brought forward by a party in the 
 exiled Court, to marry the King and the Duke of York to 
 Mademoiselle d'Orleans and Mademoiselle de Longneville, — 
 alliances which, from the ladies being Eoman Catholics, 
 would have caused extreme dissatisfaction in England, and 
 might seriously have obstructed the restoration of the royal 
 family. This was successfully opposed by Hyde ; but he 
 wisely supported the proposal, that the younger brother 
 should serve in the French army, and honourably employ him- 
 self in seeking military experience under the great Turenne. 
 
 In proportion as Cromwell gained an ascendency in the 
 Continental Courts as well as at home, and the royal party 
 was isolated in the apartments of the Louvre assigned to 
 them, Hvde's difficulties increased — from their want of real 
 business. " It is hard," he says in a spirit of good-natured 
 sarcasm, "for people who have nothing to do, to forbear 
 doing something which, they ought not to do. Whilst there 
 are Courts in the world, emulation and ambition will be in- 
 separable from them ; and Kings who have nothing to give 
 shall be pressed to promise. Men who would not have had 
 the presumption to have asked the same thing if the King had 
 been in England, thought it very justifiable to demand it 
 because he was not there, since there were so many hazards 
 that they should never live to enjoy what he promised." ■ 
 Upon Hyde was thrown the unpopular task of refusing these 
 solicitations, for in the illness and absence of Secretary 
 Nicholas, he was now considered the acting and sole Secre- 
 tary of State. 
 
 As Chancellor of the Exchequer devolved upon him the 
 iuty of attending to the scanty finances of the impoverished 
 King A handsome revenue had been expected from the 
 prizes to be made by the fleet under the orders of Prince 
 
 d 2 Clar. Pap. iii. 180. Thurloe, v. 169, 178. * Hist. Eeb. b. vi. 
 
A.D. 1G52. HIS SUFFERINGS AT PARIS. 49 
 
 Rupert ; but be returned from bis buccaneering expedition to 
 tbe West Indies, bringing in an account by which be made 
 tbe King bis debtor, and notbing was now to be expected from 
 tbis quarter except a trifle by tbe sale of tbe decayed ships 
 and their guns and stores. 
 
 In a letter written to Sir Eicbard Brown, in August, 1652, 
 Hyde says, "A sum lately received at Paris for tbe King is 
 all be batb received since he came hither, and doth not enable 
 bis cooks and back-stairs men to go on in providing bis diet, 
 but the}' protest they can undertake it no longer." The deficit 
 increased. In the end of this year, the Finance Minister 
 writes, "the King is reduced to greater distress than you can 
 believe or imagine ; " and in the summer of the following year, 
 be thus describes the state of the treasury : — " I do not know 
 that any man is yet dead for want of bread, which really I 
 wonder at. I am sure the King himself owes for all he has 
 eaten since April ; and I am not acquainted with one servant 
 of his who hath a pistole in his pocket. Five or six of us eat 
 together one meal a day for a pistole a week ; but all of us 
 owe for God knows bow many weeks to the poor woman that 
 feeds us." f 
 
 This may seem the language of badinage ; but to other cor- 
 respondents he writes in a strain which proves that his own 
 personal sufferings from poverty were most severe. "At tbis 
 time I have neither clothes nor fire to preserve me from the 
 sharpness of the season." g "1 am so cold, that 1 am scarce 
 able to hold my pen, and have not three sous in the world to 
 buy a faggot." h "I have not been master of a crown these 
 many months, am cold for want of clothes and 'fire, and owe 
 for all the meat I have eaten these three months, and to a 
 poor woman who is no longer able to trust ; and my poor 
 family at Antwerp (which breaks my heart) is in as sad a 
 state as I am." 1 "I owe so much money here to all sorts of 
 people, that I would not wonder if I were cast into prison to- 
 morrow ; and if the King should remove, as I hope he will 
 shortly have occasion to do, and not enable me to pay the 
 debt I have contracted for his service, I must look for that 
 portion, and starve there." k 
 
 His new honour of "Foreign Secretary" added greatly to 
 his embarrassments, as the letters for his Government were all 
 directed to him. "I cannot," he says, "avoid the constant 
 
 f Clar. Pap. iii. 174. $ Nov. 9, 1652. h Clar. Pap. iii. 126. 
 
 i Ibid. 124. k ibid. 164. 
 
 VOL. IV. E 
 
50 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVII. 
 
 expense of seven or eight livres the week for postage of 
 letters, which I borrow scandalously out of my friends' 
 pockets, or else my letters must more scandalously remain 
 still at the post-house : and I am sure that all those which 
 concern my own private affairs would be received for ten sous 
 a week ; so that all the rest are for the King, from whom I 
 have not received one penny since I came hither." m 
 
 He bore up nobly amidst all these embarrassments. In a 
 frame of mind firm, cheerful, and resigned, he thus writes to 
 Nicholas : — " Keep up your spirits, and take heed of sinking 
 under that burden you never kneeled to take up. Our inno- 
 cence begets our cheerfulness ; and that again will be a means 
 to secure the other. Whoever grows too weary and impatient 
 of the condition he is in, will too impatiently project to get 
 out of it ; and that, by degrees, will shake, or baffle, or delude 
 his innocence. We have no reason to blush for the poverty 
 which is not brought upon us by our own faults. As long as 
 it pleases God to give me health, (which, I thank him, I have 
 in a very great measure,) I shall think he intends I shall out- 
 live all these sufferings ; and when he sends sickness I shall 
 (I hope with the same submission) believe, that he intends to 
 remove me from greater calamities." n 
 
 But all these sufferings were light compared to the tortures 
 which he felt from the promotion of Herbert, the late 
 Attorney- General, to be Lord Keeper. This indivi- 
 dual, as we have before explained in his Life, was made an 
 instrument in the hands of Hyde's enemies to mortify and 
 depress him.° " The Queen's displeasure grew so notorious 
 against him, that after he found, by degrees, that she would 
 not speak to him, nor take any notice of him when she saw 
 him, he forbore at last coming into her presence, and for 
 many months did not see her face, though he had the honour 
 to lodge in the same house, the Palace Eoyal, p where their 
 Majesties kept their Courts." q But she had ample vengeance 
 when she had prevailed upon her son, on specious pretexts, to 
 deliver the Great Seal to Herbert, — which Hyde, notwith- 
 standing all his awkward attempts at seeming indifference, 
 evidently considered the heaviest misfortune which had ever 
 befallen him. 
 
 m The Queen could not be blamed for not money to buy fuel to light a fire to warm 
 
 assisting her son with money ; for it is re- her. 
 luted that about this time she was obliged to n Clar. Pap. ii. 310. 
 keep her daughter Henrietta all day in bed ° Ante, vol. iii. p. 406. P Palais Royal. 
 during a severe frost, because she had not 1 Hist. Reb. b. vii 
 
A.D. 1654. HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN DOWAGER. 51 
 
 The new Lord Keeper by no means bore his faculties 
 meekly ; and, not contented with parading his rank and pre- 
 cedence, he entered into cabals for the utter ruin of his rival. 
 But these terminated in his own discomfiture, and after hold- 
 ing the Great Seal little more than a year, he was deprived of 
 it, and consigned, to a premature grave/ 
 
 Hyde cleared himself satisfactorily of the charge of having 
 had an interview in England with Cromwell, and of 
 
 i . -, ^? „' , . „ ' . . A.D. 1654. 
 
 having received a pension from him for secret in- 
 formation, as well as of having spoken slanderous words of the 
 King, and he wrote pleasantly to his friends: " I hope you 
 think it strange to hear that I have been in England, and 
 have had private conference with Cromwell." " It seems I 
 was in England at the time you were at Antwerp, and I 
 believe upon examination you will be found to have been 
 there with me. Of the pension I heard not till lately. My 
 comfort is, that I do not know that any such little stratagems 
 do make impression upon any worthy person."* 
 
 From the powerful influence of the Queen, and the ill 
 offices of other enemies, and the levity of the King, Hyde 
 had been in serious danger of being discarded, and of being 
 driven either to sue for pardon to Cromwell, or to die of 
 chagrin and misery in exile. The year ending in June, 
 1654, was the most unhappy he had ever passed. But he 
 was recompensed by seeing the Great Seal again in the 
 King's own custody, and certainly knowing that when the 
 Court moved into the Low Countries, " Ex-Lord Keeper 
 Herbert " was to be left behind at Paris. 
 
 While Charles was making this journey, Hyde had leave 
 of absence to visit his family, now stationed at Breda. Before 
 quitting Paris, — on the suggestion of Charles, he asked and he 
 obtained an audience of leave from his old enemy the Queen. 
 She charged him with disrespect, saying " that all men took 
 notice that he never came where she was, though he lodged 
 under her roof." He replied, — " Madam, your Majesty men- 
 tions my punishment, not my fault. Duty apart, which I 
 hope I shall ever feel, I am not so devoid of sense as need- 
 lessly by my own act to render it notorious that I am not 
 favourably regarded by the widow of my deceased Master and 
 the mother of my present Sovereign. But unfortunately for 
 me, Madam, it has been sufficiently evident that my presence 
 was unwelcome, and for this reason alone have I abstained 
 
 ' See Life of Lord Keeper Herbert, ante, vol. iii. p. 408. B Oar. Pap. iii. 188. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVII. 
 
 from obtruding myself upon your Majesty's notice ; but now I 
 do most humbly pray that your Majesty •■will dismiss me with 
 the knowledge of what has been taken amiss, that I may be 
 able to make mine innocence and integrity appear." " But," 
 says he, speaking historically of himself in the third person, 
 "all this prevailed not with her Majesty, who, after she had 
 with her former passion objected his credit with the King, 
 and his endeavour to lessen that credit which she ought to 
 have, — concluded that she should be glad to see reason to 
 change her opinion ; and so carelessly extended her hand 
 towards him — which he kissing, her Majesty departed to her 
 chamber." l 
 
 While Charles was sojourning at Spa, in the society of his 
 sister, the Princess of Orange, Hyde spent his time most 
 happily with his wife and children at Breda ; but the Court 
 being fixed at Cologne, in the month of November, he was 
 obliged to repair thither, and to resume the irksome duties of 
 prime minister to an exiled monarch. 
 
 An event of a domestic nature now occurred to him which 
 afterwards led to important consequences. The Princess of 
 Orange had been very kind to his family, had provided a house 
 for them rent free at Breda, and taken much notice of his 
 daughter Anne, now a sprightly girl reaching woman's estate. 
 By the sudden death of a maid of honour of the smallpox, this 
 situation became vacant in the establishment of the Princess, 
 and Hyde in his narrow circumstances was advised to ask it 
 for his daughter. But he declined, — saying, "that he had 
 but one daughter, who was all the company and comfort her 
 mother had in her melancholy retirement, and therefore he 
 was resolved not to separate them, nor to dispose his daughter 
 to a court life." This however was only coyness, and the 
 matter was managed indirectly. The appointment was sug- 
 gested to the Princess and to the King, who both approved of 
 it, and they, though a little afraid of the reproaches of their 
 mother, proposed it to Hyde. He still affected to dislike it, 
 but agreed to leave the decision to Lady Hyde. She, well 
 knowing what would please her husband, accepted the offer, 
 and the future Duchess of York and mother of Queen Mary 
 
 1 Hist Reb. b. vii. The noble historian is particularly in judging of the dark insinua- 
 
 sure to put his opponent in the wrong in tions he throws out against her, while pne- 
 
 relating any controversy in which he was tending to excuse her, for di>c<>uraging th* 
 
 personally concerned, and we must always escape of her husband into France, where sh* 
 
 remember the enmity between him and Hen- was then living, attended by Lord Jermyn. 
 rieiia wJ*en we read his remarks upon her, — 
 
A.D. 1655-56. TREACHERY AND EXECUTION OF MANNING. 53 
 
 and Queen Anne, was established in the household of the 
 Princess. 
 
 With a short interval, during which Charles removed to 
 the sea-coast to favour a rising in England, he remained at 
 Cologne above two years, and Hyde attended him a 1 most as 
 his only minister. The royal exile now saw near the lo-« est 
 ebb of his fortunes, and was obliged to live like a distressed 
 private gentleman, the whole expense of his establishment not 
 exceeding 600 pistoles a month. 
 
 Hyde at this time wisely trusted to general discontent in 
 England rather than to open insurrection or to mili- 
 tary assistance from foreign powers. He thus reasons 
 in a letter to Secretary Nicholas : "I am confident there are 
 many officers who will always believe that they have done as 
 much for the Commonwealth as Cromwell himself, and there- 
 fore will not be content that he should carry away the reward ; 
 and if I did not assuredly think that in that method of destruc- 
 tion, and from that fountain of pride and madness, they will at 
 last determine the confusion and be each other's executioners, 
 I should be very melancholick ; for I have really more hope 
 from that than from all the armies and fleets you and your 
 enterprising friends will be able to draw together." u 
 
 The tranquillity of the little Court at Cologne was much 
 troubled bv the discovery of the treacherv of Man- „ M 
 
 -n, n ,,"' ,. t V n A.D. 16d6. 
 
 nrng.a young Roman Catholic, who, pretending to be 
 an ardent rovalist, had been admitted into their inmost con- 
 fidence, and who being detected in a correspondence with 
 Secretary Thurloe, confessed that he had been Cromwell's 
 paid spy for three years, transmitting to him in consideration 
 of 100/. a month all the plans of the royalists. By a stretch 
 of power, which we cannot understand how Hyde, who pos- 
 sessed a smattering of municipal law and of the law of nations, 
 could sanction, — the English shot him as a traitor ; — pretty 
 much in the same way as Queen Christina of Sweden soon 
 after, when she had ceased to wear a crown, thought fit to 
 execute her chamberlain at Fontainebleau. Cromwell was ad- 
 vised to retaliate, but he would not recognise his spy. x 
 
 The former charges against Hyde for being himself in cor- 
 respondence with Cromwell were certainly ridiculous ; but 
 many believe that seeing the splendid success of the Pro- 
 
 u jf ov- 1655. whole of Clarendon's account of JIanning'3 
 
 * " The wretch soon after received the execution,— Hist. Rd>. b. xiv. 
 reward due to his treason." This u the 
 
54 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVII. 
 
 tector's foreign policy, the regularity of his internal govern 
 ment, notwithstanding the mutinous disposition of his parlia- 
 ments, and the power now conferred upon him of naming a 
 successor, the expectant Chancellor regarded him as the 
 founder of a new dynasty, and despairing of the recall of the 
 ancient royal line, and sick of the evils of exile, wished to be 
 reconciled to him. The story goes, that shortly before the 
 removal of the Court from Cologne, he wrote a confidential 
 letter to Secretary Thurloe, with whom he had formerly been 
 on terms of friendship, praying that he might be allowed to 
 return with his family to his native laud, — that the letter being 
 shown to Cromwell, he readily gave his assent, thinking that 
 such a defection would be highly detrimental to the royal 
 cause, — that a favourable answer was returned, — but that while 
 difficulties arose as to the mode of executing the plan, a ray of 
 hope broke in from the offered support of [Spain ; — that Hyde 
 therefore resolved to prefer the chance of a Eestoration ; — 
 that his letter was carefully preserved by Thurloe ; — that 
 when the Eestoration did take place, Thurloe, whose head 
 was very insecure, adventured to the house of the Lord High 
 Chancellor, and saying he had a present to make him, de- 
 livered the letter into his hand, — and that his Lordship 
 having perused it in some confusion, gave him thanks, bade 
 him go and live quietly in his chambers, and promised that he 
 should be in nowise molested/ No strong proof is brought 
 forward to support this charge ; but I must say that it is not 
 by any means improbable, and we ought not to discredit it 
 merely from Hyde's own professions, for he did not hesitate 
 to practise duplicity, even with his friends. Upon this very 
 subject while at Madrid he thus writes to Secretary Nicholas : 
 " I know no other counsel to give you than by the grace of 
 God I mean to follow myself, which is to submit to God's 
 pleasure and judgment upon me, and to starve, really and 
 literally, with the comfort of having endeavoured to avoid it 
 by all honest means, and rather to bear it than do any thing 
 contrary to my duty. Compounding is a thing I do not under- 
 stand, or how a man can do it to save one's life. We must 
 play out the game with that courage as becomes gamesters 
 who were first engaged by conscience against all motives and 
 temptations of interest, and be glad to let the world know that 
 we -were carried on only by conscience. Indeed, all discourse 
 of submitting or compounding with those rogues in England 
 
 y See Life of Clarendon by an impartial hand. 2nd ed. 1712, p. 110. 
 
A.D. 1656. NEGOTIATION WITH SPAIN. 55 
 
 hatli so little of sense or excuse in it, that there needs no 
 reply to it. You and I must die in the streets first of 
 hunger." z Yet at the same time he thus discloses his secret 
 thoughts in a letter to his intimate friend, Sir Toby Matthew : 
 " And now, sir, let me tell you in your ear (as one whom I 
 dare trust with my want of judgment), that after all my travel 
 through the Low Countries, and I think the length of France, 
 and little less than 400 miles in the King's dominions, Eng- 
 land is a very convenient place ; and the people were once as 
 good company as any of their neighbours ; and if they can be 
 3~et reduced to half the honesty they had, if you please I will 
 meet you there ; and if we ever come again willingly out of 
 it, let us be banished London. But I will take no peremp- 
 tory resolution till I know how far I may depend upon your 
 conscience." a 
 
 If he did sometimes vacillate in the trying circumstances 
 in which he was placed, we must not condemn him with too 
 much severity. There is no reason to suppose he ever would 
 have compromised the personal safety of the expatriated King, 
 or betrayed any confidence reposed in him ; and like Prince 
 Talleyrand, in other revolutionary times, he might have 
 honourably served opposite parties and dynasties as they suc- 
 cessively gained the ascendency. 
 
 In April, 1656, Charles proceeded suddenly from Cologne 
 to Bruges, in consequence of a negotiation opened with him 
 when Cromwell engaged in hostilities against Spain. H}'de 
 was, for a time, left behind to settle the King's financial affairs, 
 — which he found no easy task. This was the first despatch 
 to his Britannic Majesty: " Your family here is in an ill con- 
 dition and your debts great ; much owing by you and by 
 those to whom you are indebted ; and yet, that the state may 
 not appear more dismal and irreparable to you than in truth 
 it is, give me leave to tell you that 4000 pistoles will discharge 
 the whole seven months board wages which are due, pay all 
 you owe here, supply those acts of bounty you will fur the 
 present think necessary, to those who receive not in wages, 
 and honestly remove and bring your family to you." b 
 
 Small as the required supply was, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer could not find ways and means to raise it, and four 
 months after, still remaining himself in pawn, he thus ad- 
 dresses the King : " I do confess I do think that the payment 
 of what is due at Cologne is of the most importance to you, 
 
 ■ Clar. Pap. iiL 24, 25. a Ibid. March 18, 1650. b Ibid iii. 293 
 
56 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVII. 
 
 and is to be such an ingredient in the establishing your future 
 ?redit, of which you have so much use, that it ought to be 
 compassed, even with some hazard to your Majesty of future 
 inconvenience." c 
 
 By receipt of the arrears of small pensions allowed him by 
 1657 ^ e Elector of Cologne and other Geirnan Princes, 
 Hyde was at last able to clear off these demands and 
 to join his Master at Bruges. d There he entered into a nego- 
 tiation with his Holiness the Pope for his aid, upon principles 
 sufficiently liberal ; for, discouraging the hope of the King's 
 conversion, he intimated his desire to put the Roman Catholics 
 in the same condition with his other subjects ; and thus con- 
 cluded : " You know well, that though the King hath in him- 
 self power to pardon and dispense with the execution of laws, 
 yet that to the Eepeal of them there must be the consent of 
 others, and therefore the less discourse there is of it the more 
 easily it will be done ; and it is no small prejudice the passion 
 and unskilfulness of some Catholics bring to their own hopes, 
 which must be compassed with gravity and order." e 
 
 But the negotiation least creditable to Hyde, was that which 
 he carried on with Sexby, the enthusiast who had published 
 the famous pamphlet, entitled " Killing no Murder ;" and who, 
 though he required a dispensation from the ceremony of 
 kneeling to Charles when he came over to Bruges, had made no 
 secret of his intention to assassinate Cromwell, as an act for 
 which he expected to be applauded by men and rewarded by 
 Heaven. 
 
 After Hyde had been some months at Bruges, an occurrence 
 ,„_ took place which materially altered his nominal rank 
 
 A.D. 16o8. x T * 
 
 and precedence, it was suggested m council, that as 
 Charles was now formally recognised as King of England by 
 Spain, and was entering into a regular treaty, offensive and 
 defensive, with that country, it would be proper that his own 
 Court should assume more the aspect of royalty, and that he 
 should have a Lord High Chancellor. There was only one 
 person that could be named for this distinction. Clarendon 
 very affectedly and hypocritically pretends that he urgently 
 declined the office when it was offered to him, " giving many 
 
 c Clar. Pap. iii. 302. debts of the Crown, which had been x>n- 
 
 d These distresses probably furnished the tracted since his accession to the throne ; 
 
 hint for one of the chapters of Addison's particularly a milk score of three yean' 
 
 " Annals of the Reign of the Pretender," the standing." — Freeholder, No. 36. 
 
 son of James II. " Anno Regni 4°. He or- e Clar. Pap. iii. 2fll. 
 
 dered the Lord High Treasurer to pay off the 
 
A.D. 1658. GREAT SEAL DELIVERED TO HIM. 67 
 
 reasons besides his own unfitness, when there was no need of 
 such an officer, or, indeed, any use of the Great Seal till the 
 King should come into England ; and that his Majesty found 
 some ease in being without such an officer ; that he was not 
 troubled with those suits which he would be if the Seal were 
 in the hands of a proper officer to be used, since every body 
 would be then importuning the King for the grant of offices, 
 honours, and lands, which would give him great vexation to 
 refuse, and do him as great mischief by granting." We are 
 asked to believe that the King not only initiated, but vigor- 
 ously carried through the measure, and now said, " he would 
 deal truly and freely with him ; that the principal reason which he had 
 alleged against receiving the Seal, was the greatest reason that dis- 
 posed him to confer it upon him. Thereupon he pulled letters out 
 of his pocket, which he received lately from Paris, for the 
 grant of several reversions in England of offices and lands ; one 
 whereof was of the Queen's house and lands of Oatlands, to the 
 same man who had purchased it from the State ; who would 
 willingly have paid a good sum of money to that person who 
 was to procure such a confirmation of his title ; the draught 
 whereof was prepared at London, upon confidence that it 
 would have the Seal presently put to it ; which being in the 
 King's hand, none need, as they thought, to be privy to the 
 secret. His Majesty told him also of many other impor- 
 tunities with which he was every day disgusted, and that he 
 saw no other remedy to give himself ease, than to put the Seal 
 out of his own keeping into such hands as would not be im- 
 portuned, and would help him to deny. And, therefore, he 
 conjured the Chancellor to receive that trust, with many 
 gracious promises of his favour and protection. Whereupon 
 the Earl of Bristol and Secretary Nicholas using likewise their 
 persuasion, he submitted to the King's pleasure ; who de- 
 livered the Seal to him in the Christmas time in the year 
 1657." 
 
 I must nevertheless be permitted to doubt whether, in the 
 absence of all other lawyers, the King, or any human being 
 about the Court of Bruges, would have ever thought of the 
 office of Chancellor, or recollected that there was in existence 
 such a bauble as the Great Seal, which had lain neglected in 
 the bottom of an old trunk ever since it was taken from Lord 
 Keeper Herbert at Paris, — if Hyde himself, now beginning to 
 see a better prospect of the King's recall, and anxious that, 
 when that event arrived, he should have no competitor for the 
 
 / 
 
58 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXYIII. 
 
 office of Chancellor, had not deemed this a convenient oppor- 
 tunity for securing it, and had not indirectly contrived that it 
 6hould be offered to hirn. f 
 
 The exact day of the appointment is fixed by the following 
 entry in the register in the Council office : — 
 
 11 Att the Court att Bruges, the thirteenth day of Jan y . 1658, st. n. 
 
 " Present, His Majestie. 
 
 " Duke of York. 
 
 " Lord Lieut, of Ireland (Ormond). 
 
 " Mr. Secretary Nicholas. 
 
 " Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 "His Majestie declared his resolution to leave his Greate Seale in 
 custody of an officer, and therefore had made choice of Sir Edward 
 Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to be Lord Chancellor of England, 
 unto whom he forthwith delivered the Greate Seale, and commanded 
 him to .be sworn ; who took the oath of supremacy and allegiance upon 
 his knee at the board, and Mr. Secretary Nicholas gave him the oath of 
 Lord Chancellor of England, and then he took his place by his Majesty's 
 command." 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXVIII. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF CLARENDON TILL THE RESTORATION OF 
 
 CHARLES II. 
 
 The new Lord Chancellor, instead of proceeding in state to 
 Westminster Hall, attended by nobles and Judges, 
 and making an inaugural speech before an admiring 
 crowd in the Court of Chancery, or explaining, in the presence 
 of the Sovereign, and the Lords, and the Commons, the reasons 
 for calling a parliament, or presiding in a Council where great 
 national questions were to be determined, had long, for his 
 sole occupation, to provide for the daily necessities of the little 
 domestic establishment, called " the Court of England," at 
 
 f He evidently assigns a reason that could Court from Paris in 1654. But this state- 
 have no real connection with the transaction, nient has misled almost all writers who have 
 — "Sir Edward Herbert, who was the last noticed the subject, to state that Herbert 
 Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, being lately continued Lord Keeper as long as he lived, 
 dead at Paris." The Great S"al had been and that it was on the vacancy occasioned bj 
 taken from Herbert on the removal of the his death that Hyde was appointed. 
 
A.D. 1658. DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 59 
 
 Bruges. The pension from France had entirely ceased, as 
 Charles was now to consider himself at war with that country ; 
 and the magnificent promises of a liberal supply from Spain 
 had utterly failed. The consequence was, that the King's 
 finances were in a more dilapidated state than ever, and the 
 debts of his Crown, consisting of his tradesmen's weekly bills, 
 increased most alarmingly. Thus writes his prime minister, 
 who now combined in his own person the duties of Chancel- 
 lor of the Exchequer and Lord High Chancellor: — " Every 
 bit of meat, every drop of drink, all the fire and all the 
 candles that hath been spent since the King's coming hither, 
 is entirely owed for ; and how to get credit for a week more 
 is no easy matter. Mr. Fox s was with me yesterday, to move 
 the King that he would let his own diet fall, and content 
 himself with one dish." So hard was "the Chancellor" 
 pushed, that he was obliged to write the following letter, and 
 to get Charles to copy it, to his sister, the Princess of Orange : 
 — " I know you are without money, and cannot very easily 
 borrow it, — at least upon so little warning ; but if you will 
 send me any jewel that I may pawn for 1500/., I do promise 
 you you shall have the jewel again in your hands before 
 Christmas." 
 
 The darkest and coldest hour of the night is immediately 
 before break of day. Sexby, meditating assassination, had 
 been detected and shut up in the Tower, but while the royal 
 party were in a state of the deepest despondency at Bruges, 
 a report was spread that Oliver, on whose single life the pre- 
 sent regime in England was supposed to depend, was danger- 
 ously ill of an ague, and in a few days a messenger arrived, 
 announcing that he was no more. Great, at first, w r as the 
 exultation of Charles and his couitiers, and they all expected 
 in the course of not many days to be in possession of \\ hite- 
 hall. But they were thrown into consternation by the next 
 news — that Bichard had been peaceably proclaimed ; that his 
 title had been acknowledged by the army as well as all the 
 civil authorities ; that addresses, pledging life and fortune in 
 his support, were pouring in from all quarters ; and that he 
 had been congratulated on his accession to the Protectorate 
 by all the foreign ambassadors in London. There was now 
 what the lawyers call " a descent cast," whereby, on the death 
 of an ejector, protection is given to the possession of his heir. 
 The restoration of the House of Stuart seemed for ever barred 
 
 8 Afterwards Sir Stephen, and the ancestor of the Holland and Ilchester families. 
 
 y 
 
60 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVIIL 
 
 by the acknowledged title of a rival dynasty. " We have 
 not," said Hyde, softening the despondence which he felt, that 
 he might not discourage others, " yet found that advan- 
 tage by Cromwell's death as we rationally hoped ; nay, rather, 
 we are the worse for it, and the less esteemed ; people ima- 
 gining by the great calm that hath followed, that the King 
 hath very few friends." h 
 
 The hopes of the Court at Bruges, however, were soon re- 
 vived by intelligence of the discontents of the army, and the 
 feuds of its rival chiefs, — which almost from the beginning 
 shook the throne of Richard. When he summoned a parlia- 
 ment, and, departing from his father's reformed system of re- 
 presentation, sent writs to the rotten boroughs, Hyde wrote 
 to the royalists in England, advising that as many of them as 
 possible should quietly get themselves returned to the House 
 of Commons. On the meeting of parliament it was found that 
 they were more numerous than could have been expected, 
 and for the ultimate good of the cause they did not scruple to 
 take the oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth and abjuration 
 of the Stuarts. Hyde suggested to them an obstructive line 
 of policy — that they should denounce the arbitrary acts of the 
 administration of the late Protector — that they should hold 
 up to particular odium Thurloe and St. John, who were the 
 most influential advisers of the new Protector — that they 
 should oppose all raising of monies, and whatever might tend 
 to a settlement of the Government — that they should widen 
 the breach between the Cromwellites and the Eepublicans — 
 and that they should throw their weight into the scale of 
 either party in such manner as might most conduce to the in- 
 terests of the King. 
 
 At this time it was thought that if Richard had been out of 
 the hands of Thurloe and St. John, he would himself have 
 declared for the restoration, " from the difficulties and dangers 
 he met with in his government, and the safe and honourable 
 advantages that he might receive by an accommodation with 
 the exiled family," and Hyde seems to have believed that " he 
 intended wholly for the King." ' 
 
 The small royalist party in the House found it expedient 
 to prevent Richard from being too soon precipitated from 
 power, lest Fleetwood or Lambert, with a considerable share 
 of the military reputation and energy of Oliver, might be 
 elevated on the bucklers of the soldiers. They, therefore, 
 
 b Clar. Pap. iii. 428. ' Ibid. 434. 454. 
 
A.D. 1659. DISSOLUTION OF RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT. 61 
 
 voted for the recognition of his title as Protector, after they 
 had succeeded in expunging the word " undoubted," — and it 
 was carried by a majority of 191 to 168. They likewise joined 
 in the majority for acknowledging with some qualifications 
 the other House of Parliament, consisting of Oliver's Peers. 
 But they joined most heartily with the republicans in ex- 
 posing the tyrannical proceedings of Oliver's Major-Generals 
 and High Courts of Justice, which they said far exceeded in 
 violence any sentences of the Star Chamber or High Commis- 
 sion Court abolished by the late King. They likewise pointed 
 out the enormous increase in the public expenditure, and the 
 arbitrary exactions by which it was supplied, — depicting, in 
 glowing colours, the happy, tranquil, taxless times which the 
 more aged might still remember. All this was supposed to be 
 only out of odium to the Protectorate as against a pure repub- 
 lic, but was meant to bring back the affections of the people 
 to royalty. A favourable impression being made, Hyde 
 wrote to them to move the impeachment of Thurloe and St. 
 John. This they were not strong enough prudently to at- 
 tempt ; but they followed up the blow with great effect on the 
 presentation of Petitions from various persons who had been 
 illegally imprisoned without warrant or cause assigned, or 
 whose relations had been transported without a trial to Bar- 
 badoes, and there sold as slaves. 
 
 After a session of less than three months, the Protectorate 
 had been so effectually damaged that Ei chard, as the 
 only step to save himself, resorted to a measure 
 which proved his instant ruin, by dissolving the parliament, — 
 and the array was for a time triumphant. Hyde, watching 
 this movement at Brussels, felt much alarm, which was not 
 quieted by the restoration of the " Pump," where he had no 
 friends. A majority of the survivors of the Long Parliament, 
 though Presbyterians, were for royalty ; but the members 
 turned out by "Pride's purge" were still excluded, and 
 those in whom the supreme power was now nominally placed 
 were the section who had voted for the death of Charles I., 
 and were devoted republicans. However, they had no hold of 
 public opinion ; and when they affected to assert their inde- 
 pendence by cashiering Lambert and Desborough, the nation 
 was rejoiced to see them again expelled, although for a time 
 the government fell into the hands of a self-elected council of 
 state. All these changes aggravated the general confusion, 
 and were favourable to the King. There whs now a growing 
 
62 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON Chap. LXXVIII. 
 
 desire for Iris return, to which Hyde wished to trust rather 
 than to partial insurrections in his favour, saying, " I confess 
 without a general conjunction, and therefore kindling the fire 
 in several parts of the kingdom together, 1 cannot imagine 
 how any single attempt, how bravely soever undertaken by 
 our friends alone, can be attended with success." k 
 
 A general rising was concerted, with Hyde's concurrence, 
 in the month of July, but fortunately (for it must have led 
 to much bloodshed) it was prevented by the treachery of Sir 
 R. Willis, who in an age where, generally speaking, there was 
 unspotted party fidelity, was false, first to the republicans, and 
 then to the royalists. 
 
 Charles in the autumn of this year went to the coast of 
 Brittany, intending from thence to make a landing in Wales 
 or Cornwall, and this plan being abandoned, proceeded to 
 join the conference at Fontarabia, in the vain hope of inducing 
 France and Spain to unite in supporting his cause. Hyde 
 meanwhile remained stationary at Brussels, carrying on a 
 secret correspondence with almost all parties and classes of 
 men in England, and seeing more and more clearly the satis- 
 factory prospect of the King being restored by the sponta- 
 neous movement of his own subjects. The mode in which the 
 restoration would be accomplished, in the face of the formid- 
 able army under Fleetwood and Lambert, composed chiefly 
 of republicans and independents, no one distinctly foresaw ; 
 but a general feeling prevailed that it was inevitable, and 
 most men began to speculate how it might best be brought 
 about for their own safety and advantage. Now it was that 
 Whitelock advised Fleetwood to declare for the King, m mean- 
 ing himself to bring over the Commonwealth's Great Seal to 
 Charles, — in which case Monk's real intentions would never 
 have been ascertained, and he would have been almost un- 
 known in history. When Hyde heard the probability of 
 Fleetwood's defection from the republican party, he had no 
 confidence in his firmness, and he thus expressed himself: 
 — " The character which we have always received of the 
 man is not such as makes him equal to any notable design, 
 or to be much relied on to-morrow for what in truth he re- 
 solved to do yesterday : however, as his wit is not so great 
 as some of the rest, so his wickedness is much less apparent 
 than any of theirs, and therefore industry ard dexterity 
 must be used to dispose and confirm him in his good in- 
 
 k Thurloe, i. 746. Burton's Diary, iv. 255. m Ante, voL iii. p. 381 et teq. 
 
A.D. 1660. GENERAL MONK. C3 
 
 tentions, and let him take his own time for the manifestation 
 of it." n 
 
 One of the most amusing proposals made to Hyde was from 
 Lord Hatton, a most zealous royalist, — that Charles should 
 gain over General Lambert by marrying his daughter, — urg- 
 ing " that no foreign aid would be so cheap or would leave 
 the restored monarch at such liberty, — commending withal 
 the beauty and disposition of the lady, the distinguished 
 bravery of the father, and the respectability and antiquity of 
 their lineage." No answer was returned, — that the alliance 
 might not be considered absolutely rejected. 
 
 But in common cases, Hyde was not at all scrupulous in 
 trying to gain the support of any party, or any individual, by 
 lavish promises. He distinctly gave the Presbyterians to un- 
 derstand that they were to be favoured, and he got the King 
 to write " a great many very obliging letters to their leaders 
 to the same effect," so that many of them co-operated in the 
 Restoration hoping that Presbytery was to be adopted as the 
 established religion, and all the rest in the full faith that at 
 all events they would have the same civil rights as the Epis- 
 copalians. " The management of all this," says Burnet, " was 
 so entirely the Chancellor's, that there was scarce any other 
 that had so much as a share in it with him." ° We shall here- 
 after see whether he kept the word of promise, either to the 
 ear or to the hope, when we relate the passing of " The Cor- 
 poration Act," " The Act of Uniformity," and " The Conven- 
 ticle Act." 
 
 Hyde early had the penetration to discover Monk's great 
 influence, and the probability of his using it for the 
 King. Soon after Cromwell's death he received a 
 letter from Colepeper, pointing out Monk " as able alone to 
 restore the King, and not absolutely averse to it, neither in his 
 principles nor in his affections," and describing him as likely 
 to be dissatisfied with the advancement of Eichard, " beins: a 
 sullen man, that values himself enough, and much believes 
 that his knowledge and reputation in arms fit him for the title 
 of Highness and the office of Protector better than Mr. Eichard 
 Cromwell's skill in horse races and husbandry doth." Hyde 
 therefore wrote a letter, which Charles copied, to be shown to 
 Monk — addressed to Lord Falconbridge, Lord Bellasis, and 
 Sir John Grenville, or either of them : — " I am confident that 
 George Monk can have no malice in his heart against me, nor 
 
 n Gar. Pap. iii. 59a. ° Burnet's Own Times, i. 150. 
 
64 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXV1II. 
 
 hath he done any thing against me which I cannot very 
 easily pardon ; and it is in his power to do me so great ser- 
 vice that I cannot easily reward, but I will do all I can, and 
 1 do authorise you, and either of you, with the advice of 
 the rest, to treat with him ; and not only to assure him of my 
 kindness, but that I will very tolerably reward him with such 
 an estate in land, and such a title of honour as himself shall 
 desire, if he will declare for me and adhere to my interest ; 
 and whatever you shall promise to him on my behalf, or 
 whatever he or you by his advice shall promise to any of his 
 officers in the army under his command (w T hich command he 
 shall still keep), I will make good and perform upon the word 
 of a King." * 
 
 Charles soon after was induced to write a letter to Monk 
 himself, containing similar assurances; and a brother of Monk, 
 a clergyman in the West of England, was employed, under 
 Hyde's directions, to undertake a journey into Scotland for 
 the purpose of sounding his intentions. But the wary Gene- 
 ral could not be drawn into any correspondence with the 
 exiled Court. For some reason which has not been explained 
 he showed a marked antipathy to Hyde, and there was no in- 
 tercourse between them till they met at Dover on the King's 
 landing. 
 
 Even when Monk was advancing with his army into Eng- 
 land, Hyde, not unreasonably, distrusted him, and suspected 
 that he meant to set up himself for Protector as soon as he 
 should have got the better of Lambert, as "honest George" 
 continued from time to time to declare — " We must live and die 
 for and with a Commonwealth; " — called God to witness " he 
 had no intention to embrace his Majesty's interest, nor ever 
 would he ; " — at York caned an officer for saying, " George 
 will at last let in the King ; " — and even after his arrival in 
 London made a speech to the excluded members about to be 
 restored to their seats in parliament, asserting his preference 
 for " a republican government and a Presbyterian church." 
 But in the beginning of March Hyde's suspicions were nearly 
 dissipated, and he wiites to a friend, " If Monk hath from the 
 beginning intended well, he hath proceeded very wisely in 
 the steps he hath made." q 
 
 After Charles's return from the conference at Fontarabia, 
 Hyde continued with him at Brussels anxiously watching the 
 proceedings in England without being able in any perceptible 
 
 P Clar, Pap. iii. 417. 1 Ibid. 694. 
 
A.D. 1660. HIS DIFFICULTY IN MANAGING ROYALISTS 65 
 
 degree to influence them. His chief task was to restrain in- 
 discreet enterprises, and to induce those around him to wait 
 patiently for the coming events, whose shadows might be so 
 distinctly discerned. He found it particularly difficult to 
 allay the jealousies which broke out among the royalists them- 
 selves, all now officiously struggling to make their services 
 conspicuous, and to lay the foundation for future favours. 
 " Those who are trusted a little," said he, " would be trusted 
 more and know more, and are troublesome upon their being 
 disappointed. I know no security but to be obstinate in apply- 
 ing them only to what they are fit for." r He was obliged 
 to remonstrate with Lord Mordaunt, whom, under the guise 
 of describing the sentiments of other friends of the King, he 
 thus addressed: — " First, it is said that you take the whole 
 business upon yourself; and therefore they do or pretend to 
 believe that the King hath given the whole power to you, as 
 well in martial as in civil affairs. Secondly, they seem to 
 apprehend that all that is or shall be done is looked upon as 
 your entire work, and the effect of your interest and conduct, 
 and that they are not represented, or shall be considered as 
 co-partners in any thing." 8 
 
 The principal anxiety at Brussels now was to ascertain what 
 conditions the Convention parliament, when assembled, would 
 propose. Better than such as had been demanded from the 
 late King while he was in the Isle of "Wight were not 
 expected, and these would have been very readily conceded. 
 Almost the last vote of the last parliament — acting freely, — 
 with all its members restored, — and after having resolved to 
 recall the King, was " that Presbyterianism should be the 
 established religion of the kingdom ; " — and no one on either 
 side of the water yet appreciated the accelerated strength with 
 which the cavalier spirit, enthusiastic and vengeful, raged 
 throughout the country. 
 
 At length Sir Matthew Hale having made his motion for 
 '"a Committee to consider the propositions that had been 
 made to, and the concessions that had been offered by, the 
 late King during the war, particularly at the treaty of New- 
 port, that from thence they might digest such propositions as 
 they should think fit to be sent over to the King," it was 
 strenuously resisted by Monk, who wished to have the glory 
 of an unconditional restoration, aud asked, if propositions 
 were fit, " might they not as well prepare them, and offei 
 
 r Clar. Pap. iii. 684. 8 Ibid. 
 
 VOL. IV. F 
 
C6 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXVIII. 
 
 them to mm when he should come over ? " Such cheers were 
 elicited by the General's blunt speech, that the motion was 
 dropped. " This," says Burnet, ironically, " was indeed the 
 great service that Monk did ! " ' When the result of the de- 
 bate was transmitted to Charles and his minister, they saw, 
 with delight, that every thing was now in their discretion, 
 and they deserve credit for the moderate use which, in the 
 first instance, they made of the absolute power over three 
 kingdoms, which, as if by magic, was in a moment conferred 
 upon them. 
 
 During this enthusiastic burst of loyalty they were esta- 
 blished at Breda, having secretly left Brussels under the ap- 
 prehension that, in the prospect of Charles's recall to the 
 throne of England, he might have been detained as a hostage 
 by the Spaniards for the restoration of Jamaica and Dunkirk, 
 which had been taken from them by Cromwell. Here gra- 
 cious letters were written, in the King's name, to Monk and 
 the army, to Montagu and the navy, to the House of Lords, 
 to the House of Commons, and to the Lord Mayor and citi- 
 zens of London ; and here Hyde penned the famous " Decla- 
 ration from Breda," granting pardon to all such as should 
 claim it within forty days, and return to loyalty and obe- 
 dience, excepting only such persons as should thereafter be 
 excepted by parliament, providing that no man should be dis- 
 quieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of 
 religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom ; declaring 
 that all questions relating to grants, sales, and purchases of 
 public property should be determined in parliament, and that 
 the army under the command of General Monk should be 
 taken into tl e King's service, on as good pay and conditions 
 as they then njoyed. 
 
 Nothing nv. w remained, except that Charles should select a 
 port* of embatkation, as if, having been long in possession of 
 the Crown, he had been returning to his dominions after a 
 friendly visit to some allied Sovereigns on the continent ; — 
 only that he was more eagerly longed for by his subjects than 
 ever was monarch who had actually reigned. 
 
 Hyde accompanied him from Breda to the Hague, amidst 
 the acclamations of the population through which they passed, 
 and was regarded with peculiar interest and favour as the 
 faithful companion of the exiled, and the future minister of the 
 restored, Sovereign. On the 23rd of May they embarked on 
 
 t Burn. Own Times, i. 152. 
 
A.D. 1660. THE RESTORATION. 67 
 
 boe.rd the English fleet at Scheveling, Tinder the command of 
 Montagu, and on the 25th they landed at Dover. u What 
 must have been Hyde's sensations when, under such circum- 
 stances, he again set foot on English ground ! He had been 
 in exile above fourteen years, — during which he had been 
 exposed to all sorts of perils, privations, and mortifications, 
 and he had often seen reason to abandon himself to despair. 
 Now enjoying both royal favour and popular applause, every 
 thing that an ambitious man could desire had been accom- 
 plished by him, or was within his reach; — a splendid pro- 
 vision for his family, so often destitute, was now secured ; — 
 he had already achieved a name in history; — and about to 
 guide the destinies of the British empire, he might hope to be 
 long the instrument of conferring blessings on his country and 
 his kind. 
 
 Bearing the Great Seal, which had been delivered to him 
 at Bruges, and which was at length transformed into an ensign 
 of real power, he accompanied the King in the grand ovation 
 from Dover, — entering London on the 29th of May, " with a 
 triumph of above 20,000 horse and foot, brandishing their 
 swords, and shouting with inexpressible joy — the ways 
 strewed with flowers — the bells ringing — the streets hung 
 with tapestry — fountains running with wine ; the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and all the Companies in their liveries, chains of 
 gold, and banners ; lords and nobles clad in cloth of silver, 
 gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies all set with 
 ladies ; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even 
 so far as from Rochester." x 
 
 On the arrival of the procession at Whitehall, the two 
 Houses of Parliament were there to receive the King. As 
 Hyde had not yet taken his place as Lord Chancellor on the 
 woolsack, he stood during this ceremony on his Majesty's 
 right hand, and the Earl of Manchester, acting once more as 
 Speaker of the House of Lords, delivered their address of con- 
 gratulation. 
 
 u It is curious enough that Charles selected x Evelyn, who was an eye-witness. - Menu 
 " the Xasebt " man of war to carry himself ii. 148. 
 and his immediate attendants. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON 1 ILL THE MEETING 
 OF THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF CHARLES II. 
 
 On the 1st of June Hyde entered on the regular discharge of 
 ad 1660 ^ s P ari i ameirtai y an d judicial duties. At the meet- 
 ing of the House in the morning of that day, though 
 still a Commoner, holding the Great Seal, he took his place on 
 the woolsack as Speaker by prescription. 
 
 Soon after the King came in state, and, the Commons being 
 summoned, he made a short speech to both Houses, and then 
 commanded the Lord Chancellor to deliver his mind farther 
 to them. The Journals tell us that he did so, but there is 
 no trace of his oration on this interesting occasion any where 
 to be found. 2 The royal assent was then given to a bill for 
 turning the Convention, so irregularly called, into a lawful Par- 
 liament, and to some other necessary acts; when " the Lord Chan- 
 cellor told both Houses with how much readiness his Majesty 
 had passed these important acts, and how willing they should, 
 at all times hereafter, find him to pass any other that might 
 tend to the advantage and benefit of the people ;" in a parti- 
 cular manner desiring, in his Majesty's behalf, that " the Bill 
 of Oblivion, in which they had made so good a progress, 
 might be expedited ; that the people might see and know 
 his Majesty's gracious care to ease and free them from their 
 doubts and fears, and that he had not forgotten his gracious 
 declaration made at Breda, but that he would, in all points, 
 make it good." a 
 
 The same day Hyde took his seat in the Court of Chancery, 
 and the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and the oath of 
 office, were administered to him. b 
 
 z It must have been, at all events, much "The Right Honoble S 1 ". Edward Hyde, 
 
 to the taste of his audience, for the following Knt. Lord Chaunc r . of England, coming into 
 
 clay " the House gave the Lord Chancellor the Court of Chauncery att West r . accom- 
 
 thanks for his excellent speech yesterday." — panied by the Right Honoble the Ixird Cul- 
 
 Lords' Jour. June 2, 1660. peper, M r . of the Rolls, before his Lords? 
 
 a 4 Pari. Hist. 64. entering upon anye busynes, took the oathe 
 
 *> " AnDo duodecimo Caroli Scdi R 8 . June I, of the office of Chaunc r . of England, the booke 
 
 1660. being held to him by the said M r . of the Rolls 
 
A.D. 1660. HIS UNFITNESS TO ACT AS AN EQUITY JUDGE. 69 
 
 He certainly must have been very unfit for the judicial 
 duties of the office. He never had been a well-grounded 
 lawyer, and he had never practised much in Courts of Equity. 
 It was now twenty years since he had entirely left the bar. 
 In the interval he had not attempted to keep up any know- 
 ledge of his profession ; and the important political occupa- 
 tions which constantly harassed him must have chased from 
 his mind nenrty all the judicial notions which had ever en- 
 tered it, so that by this time he could hardly have recollected 
 the distinction between legal and equitable estates, or known 
 the difference between a bill of discovery and a bill for relief. 
 He had cherished the prospect of holding the Great Seal in 
 England, but he had no English law books with him at 
 Bruges, at Brussels, or at Breda ; and, while residing in 
 those places, the whole of his time had been engrossed in pro- 
 jecting and watching over measures for the King's restor- 
 ation. 
 
 There were strong efforts made by different parties and 
 individuals to exclude him from the office on political grounds. 
 The Presbyterians, headed by Lords Manchester and Bedfoi d, 
 had said that " they could not be secure if they permitted so 
 much as a kitchen-boy to be about the King of his old party," 
 and though they regarded him as " a man to keep out popery," 
 believing him to be " irreconcileable to their form, notwith- 
 standing his fair professions in their favour," they were ex- 
 ceedingly desirous that he should not retain a situation of 
 such power and influence. He was equally obnoxious to the 
 Catholics, notwithstanding the hope he had held out to them 
 that they should be safe by virtue of the dispensing power of 
 the Crown till the penal laws against them should be duly 
 repealed. Monk was still his secret enemy, and Queen Hen- 
 rietta, with her friend, Lord Jerniyn. retaining her ancient 
 grudge, intrigued against him, particularly with the Presby- 
 terian leaders. It was much pressed upon the King that he 
 should give the Great Seal to Sir Orlando Bridgeman or Sir 
 Jeffery Palmer, lawyers who had not attached themselves 
 strongly to any party or sect, and from whom all might expect 
 some advantage. 
 
 But the judicial- qualifications of the person to be preferred 
 
 the first day of June, in the yere aforesaid, the oathes of supremaeye and allegeance, and 
 
 being alsoe the first day of his Lop.'s sitting, the oathe of Lord Chauncellor." — Croun Lff. 
 
 and the first day of Terme, the former part Min. B. fol. 15. 
 
 Dot being kept. The Lord Chauncellor took c Clar. Pap. iii. 655, 705, 728, 744. 
 
70 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 were little thought of. The notion seems still pretty gene- 
 rally to have prevailed, that though to preside properly 
 in a court of common law required a long course of pro- 
 fessional study and experience,* 1 any man of plain sense and 
 good intentions might "mitigate the rigour of general rules, 
 and do what was just between the parties in each particular 
 case," — which was the vulgar notion of equity. Nay, it is 
 asserted that Sir John Grenville, in his first negotiation with 
 Monk, "propounded to the General 100,000/. per annum for 
 ever, as his Majesty's donation to him and his officers, with 
 the office of Lord High Chancellor and Constable of England 
 for himself, and the nomination of any other great officers of 
 the Crown." We may well doubt whether such an offer 
 ever was made — at least with the authority or privity of 
 Hyde ; but the circulation of the story shows that men then 
 contemplated the possibility of their having a military Chan- 
 cellor in Westminster Hall, as there still is in some of our 
 colonies. 
 
 The opposition to Hyde's retaining the Great Seal was so 
 formidable, that he seems to have offered to resign it rather 
 than hazard the harmony of the Restoration ; e but he was 
 warmly supported by Southampton, Ormond, Nicholas, and 
 Colepeper. The King, long accustomed to be guided by him, 
 was " yet wholly in his hands," — though giving wise and 
 good advice, " he did it too much with the air of a governor 
 or of a lawyer." In truth, for some years "he carried the 
 Crown in his pocket." Clarendon showed his generosity 
 by appointing Bridgeman and Palmer, his rivals for the Great 
 Seal — the one Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, 
 and the other Attorney-General.' 
 
 As a Judge he conducted himself with such prudence and 
 discretion, and made such wise use of the knowledge and 
 abilities of others, as to escape complaint, and even to be 
 reckoned a good Chancellor. He had always two Masters 
 in Chancery to keep him right in matters of practice, and he 
 never made a decree without the assistance of two of the 
 Judges. g He acquired much credit by publishing some salu- 
 tary regulations for the better administration of the offices 
 of the Masters in Chancery and the Six Clerks, still known 
 and cited under the name of "Lord Clarendon's Orders." h 
 
 d " Lucubrationes viginti annorum." 6 See note of Speaker Onslow to ed. of 
 
 e Price's Mystery and Method of the Ee- Burnet. Oxford, i. 161. 
 
 ■tauration. h Although it waa not till some months 
 
 1 Burn. Own Times, i. 150. after that he was raised to the peerage, it 
 
A.D. 1660. HE APPOINTS A CABINET 71 
 
 These were prepared under his directions by Sir Hai bottle 
 Grimston, tke Master of the Rolls, assisted by the officers of 
 the Court, and consist chiefly of Lord Keeper Whitelock's 
 orders, and some of the least exceptionable articles in Crom- 
 well's famous Ordinance for reforming the Court of Chancery, 
 which could no longer be directly referred to. 1 
 
 When Clarendon was finally established, and in great 
 favour both with the King and the parliament, his intimate 
 associate, the Duke of Ormond, privately urged him to resign 
 his judicial office and to accept the staff of Lord High Trea- 
 surer, stating ' ' that all his best friends wondered that he so 
 much affected the post he was in as to continue in the office 
 of Chancellor, which took up most of his time, especially all 
 the mornings, in business that many other men could discharge 
 as well as he."* He replied, "that he would sooner be pre- 
 ferred to the gallows." He probably felt that he would be 
 more exposed to envy, and that his hold of power would be 
 more precarious, in an office purely political. He had re- 
 signed the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he 
 had nominally held so long under two reigns, and had been 
 succeeded in it by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. m 
 
 We must now attend to his proceedings as prime minister, 
 for it was as a statesman that he was chiefly regarded in his 
 own and succeeding times. He was much embarrassed by 
 the numerous attendance of Privy Councillors, the distinction 
 between the Privy Council and the Cabinet, so familiar to us, 
 
 may be convenient that he should now be Sir E. Hyde being one of the Commissioners, 
 
 denominated by the title under which he is and named first as Chancellor of England, 
 
 familiar to us from the Restoration. The other Commissioners were, Marquis of 
 
 i See " Collections of such of the Orders Ormond, Sir George Monk, Earl of South- 
 heretofore used in Chancery, with such altera- ampton, Lord Roberta, Lord Culpeper, Sir 
 tions and additions thereunto as the Earl of E. Montagu, Sir E. Nicholas, and Sir W. 
 Clarendon, Lord Chancellor, and Sir H. Morrice. Sept 8, 1660, this Commission 
 Grimston, Master of the Rolls, have thought ceased, and Lord Southampton was made 
 fit to ordain and publish for reforming of Lord High Treasurer; and by another pa- 
 several abuses in the said Court."— 12mo. tent, dated 12th Sept., was empowered to 
 editions, 1661, 1669, 1676, 16S8— Beanies' s perform all the duties of Under-Treasurer 
 General Orders, p. 165. during the vacancy of that office. May 13, 
 
 k No reflection being meant upon him as a 1661, Sir A. A. Cooper was made Chancellor 
 
 Judge— and another proof that to preside in of Exchequer and Under-Treasurer. It is 
 
 the Court of Chancery was not then con- the TJnder-Treasurership that is properly the 
 
 sidered what the Scotch call "a kittle job."— financial office. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
 
 Life, Continuation, 14. chequer, as such, was the Chief Judge, on 
 
 m He remained Chancellor of the Ex- the equity side of the Court of Exchequer. 
 
 Chequer till May 13, 1661, the date of Sir A. The two appointments are still kept nomi- 
 
 A. Cooper's appointment The Treasury nally distinct, and might be conferred on 
 
 was put into Commission 19th June, 1660, different individuals. 
 
LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chat>. LXXIX. 
 
 not being yet established. To obviate this difficulty, he pro- 
 cured the appointment of a committee, ostensibly for the con- 
 sideration of foreign affairs, but in reality to discuss all mea- 
 sures, whether of foreign or domestic policy, before they were 
 submitted to a board and formally determined upon." Monk, 
 and Morrice his nominee, were admitted to this secret con- 
 sultation ; but the Chancellor insured his control over them 
 by the 'presence of Oraiond, Southampton, and Kicholas. 
 He had likewise frequent conferences " with such members 
 of the parliament who were most able and willing to serve 
 the King, to concert all the ways and means by which the 
 transactions in the Houses might be carried with the more 
 expedition and attended with the best success." ° The office 
 of foreign secretary being still unknown, the Chancellor 
 wrote the instructions for all the ambassadors abroad, and re- 
 gularly corresponded with them, besides superintending the 
 important parliamentary proceedings now necessaiy to conso- 
 lidate the Eestoration. p 
 
 n The King was present at all the Meetings 
 of this Committee. Lord Culpeper was also 
 a member, but he died very soon. In the 
 State Paper Office are minutes by Sir E. 
 Nicholas, of the Meetings of the Committee in. 
 the first year after the Restoration. It was 
 arranged at the outset, that it should meet 
 every Monday and Thursday morning at ten, 
 in the Lord Chancellor's Chamber. This 
 Committee was also called the "Cabal" from 
 the first, and long before the so-called " Cabal 
 Ministry." Sir E. Nicholas's minutes are all 
 endorsed C. B. The word "Cabal," derived 
 from the Hebrew, had long before been intro- 
 duced, both into the French and English lan- 
 guages—originally meaning only secret or 
 mysterious, and gradually savouring of in- 
 trigue and conspiracy. — If the fact had not 
 been ascertained that the King attended the 
 Meetings of this Committee, it might have 
 been considered the origin of our present Cabi- 
 net Meetings; but down to the end of Anne's 
 reign, the sovereign in England was always 
 present at state deliberations, and the practice 
 was not altered till the accession of George I., 
 who being wholly ignorant of our language, 
 absented himself from them, and was content 
 with being told the result in bad Latin, the 
 only medium of communication with his 
 minister. George II., although he knew a 
 little Engli«h, naturally fell 'into the same 
 course, and by the ond of his reign this mode 
 
 of transacting business was considered as per- 
 manently engrafted into our constitution ; 
 otherwise, George III. would very eagerly 
 and very inconveniently have restored a 
 practice which undoubtedly adds much to 
 the personal influence of the sovereign, al 
 though by no means tending to the good 
 government of the country. I must own, 
 however, that our monarchical forms, are 
 hardly enough respected, and amidst the talk 
 of "the Duke of Wellington's Government," 
 "Lord Grey's Government," "Lord Mel- 
 bourne's Government," and " Sir Robert 
 Peel's Government," it seems to be forgotten 
 that there is a sovereign on the throne. 
 
 ° Life, i. 362. 
 
 P There were then two principal Secre- 
 taries of State, but they were little better 
 than chief clerks attending the Privy Council 
 and the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and 
 obeying instructions. By and by the world 
 was divided between them, oue having to 
 correspond with countries in the north, and 
 the other with countries in the south. This 
 division continued till the middle of the 
 reign of George II \., when the Home and 
 Foreign departments were separated, and at 
 last a third secretary was added for the Colo- 
 nies. But still, in point of law, they have 
 all the same powers and functions. During 
 the time of the northern and southern divi« 
 sion, it was said they were like two coachmcu 
 
A.D. 1660. SETTLEMENT OF THE REVENUE. 73 
 
 The first great measure to be carried was " tlie Bill of Obli- 
 vion and Indemnity," and much praise ought to be bestowed 
 on Clarendon for pushing it through without introducing more 
 numerous exceptions, — notwithstanding the vindictive spirit 
 prevailing in the Commons, and still more in the Lords, where 
 it was denominated " a bill of oblivion of loyalty and indemnity to 
 treason." q 
 
 The next question was the settlement of the revenue, and 
 it was proposed by some that the Chancellor should now get 
 for the Crown a perpetual grant, which would for ever render 
 it independent of parliaments ; but, believing the scheme to be 
 impracticable or inexpedient, he entirely discountenanced it. 
 " It was believed." savs Burnet, " that if two millions had 
 been asked he could have carried it. But he had no mind to 
 put the King out of the necessity of having recourse to his 
 parliament. The King came afterwards to believe that he 
 could have raised both his authority and revenue much higher, 
 but that he had no mind to carry it farther or to trust him 
 too much." r The grant was limited to 1,200,000/., and ways 
 and means were not provided for more than one half that 
 amount, insomuch that the King was obliged to make the 
 following speech to the two Houses, which if it was prepared 
 by Clarendon, as we are bound to suppose, shows that pecu- 
 niary pressure could make the Historian of the Bebellion lay 
 aside the sesquipedalian words in which he usually delighted. 
 " I must tell you," said the King in his speech to the parlia- 
 ment, on the 29th of August, 1660, " that I am not richer, that 
 is, I have not so much money in my purse as when I came to 
 you. The truth is, I have lived principally ever since upon 
 what 1 brought with me, which was indeed your money. 
 You sent it to me, and I thank you for it. The weekly ex- 
 pense of the navy eats up all you have given me by the bill of 
 
 on the same box — each intrusted separately to the House of Peers that they will use all 
 
 with one rein, to the great peril of the pas- possible expedieon in passinge the same, and 
 
 sengers. that tbey will rest satisfyed with the excep- 
 
 1 It was necessary to send several mes- 90ns they have already made of persons, and 
 
 sages to the two Houses in the King's name, from hencefonvarde that they not thinke of 
 
 praying them to expedite the Bill. The any farther excepcous of persons either as to 
 
 draught of one of these in Clarendon's hand- life or estate, or any other incapacity, but 
 
 writing is preserved in the Bodleian Library : endeavour by all means to bury all thoughts 
 
 " His Majesty taking notice of the delay in of animosity and revenge, that the whole 
 
 the passinge the Bill of Indemnity, and of island may returne to those mutuall offices of 
 
 the greate obstructions to the peace and conversation and friendship which alone can 
 
 security of the kingdome which aryse from establish a firm and lastinge peace.'' 
 that delay, doth very earnestly recommend r Burnet, i. 27 1, 435. 
 
74 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 tonnage and poundage. Nor have I been able to give my 
 brother one shilling since I came to England, nor keep any 
 table in my house but where I eat myself; and that which 
 troubles me most is to see many of you come to me at Whitehall, a,\d 
 to think you must go somewhere else to seek a dinner" 8 
 
 The plan was now carried into effect which Clarendon had 
 long contemplated, of sanctioning the abolition of the military 
 tenures, with their incidents of reliefs, wardships, and mar- 
 riages, which brought great profit and patronage to the 
 Crown, but were most burdensome and oppressive to the 
 landed aristocracj^, and had been substantially abolished 
 during the Commonwealth by suppressing the Court of 
 Wards and Liveries. The bill, as he introduced it, very 
 equitably charged the 100,000Z. to be given to the King upon 
 the land, which was to be relieved ; but an amendment was 
 moved throwing it on the Excise, which had been imposed 
 as a temporary tax on articles of consumption. The amend- 
 ment was stoutly opposed in the House of Commons, and was 
 shown to be so flagrantly unjust, that even some country 
 squires voted against it, so that it was only carried by a 
 majority of 151 to 149. This may be considered the com- 
 mencement of a new system of legislation by the landed 
 interest for their own immunity : anciently not only was the 
 regular permanent revenue of the Crown chiefly derived from 
 charges upon land, but when extraordinary aids and subsidies 
 were voted, almost the whole fell upon the land, — and, 
 except on the importation of wine and some o' her foreign com- 
 modities, personal property was exempted from almost all 
 fiscal burdens. 
 
 Considerable apprehension was still caused by the army of 
 the Commonwealth, which, had it known its own strength, 
 could have commanded the kingdom ; but the Chancellor 
 showed great address in the mode adopted for disbanding it. 
 In a speech which he addressed to both Houses in the pre- 
 sence of the King, he said "it is an army whose order and 
 discipline, whose sobriety and manners, whose courage and 
 success have made it famous and terrible all over the world ; 
 but his Majesty having the felicity of being without danger 
 at home or from abroad, knows that Englishmen will not wish 
 that a standing army should be kept up in the bowels of their 
 own country. Out of regard to public liberty therefore the 
 Boldiers are to become citizens, and to take delight in that 
 
 • lords' Journ. Aug. 29, 1660. 
 
A.D. 1660. TRIAL OF THE REGICIDES. 75 
 
 peace which they have so honestly and so wonderfully brought 
 to pass." ' 
 
 The Chancellor's attention was next devoted to the trial of 
 the regicides. Although his name was placed in the commis- 
 sion after that of the Lord Mayor of London, he did not take 
 his place on the Bench during any of the trials, but he was 
 obliged to exercise a general superintendence over the pro- 
 ceedings. It was without difficulty resolved that the indict- 
 ment should be for " compassing the death of the King," — 
 murdering him not being a substantive treason, — and that the 
 decapitation should be laid only as the overt act to prove the 
 compassing; — but very puzzling questions arose, whether 
 the decapitation should be alleged to have taken place in the 
 reign of Charles I. or Charles II. ? — and against the peace of 
 which Sovereign the offence should be alleged to have been 
 committed ? The Chancellor ordered the Judges to be pre- 
 viously consulted. Thev agreed that all that was done tend- 
 mg to the King's murder, until the moment before his head 
 was completely severed from his body, was in the time of his 
 own reign, but that the murder was not perfected till the 
 actual severance, — when Charles I. being supposed to have 
 died, a demise of the Crown had taken place, and a new 
 Sovereign must be considered as de jure on the throne. They 
 resolved, however, that "the compassing should be laid on 
 the 29th of January, 24 Car. I., and the murder trecesimo mensis 
 ejusdem Januarii, without here naming any year of any King ; 
 and that the indictment should conclude, contra pacem nuper do- 
 mini Hegis coron et dignitaf suas, necnon contra pacem domini nunc 
 Regis coron 1 et dignitat'' suas" 
 
 I do not think that blame is imputable to Clarendon with 
 respect to any of the unhappy men who suffered, except Sir 
 Harry Vane, who was not concerned in the King's death, and 
 was charged with treason merely for having afterwards acted 
 under the authority of the parliament. No satisfactory answer 
 could be given to the plea that the parliament was then de 
 facto the supreme power of the state, and that it could as 
 little be treason to act under its authority as under the au- 
 thority of an usurper on the throne, — which is expressly de- 
 clared by the statute of Henry VII. not to be treason ; and it 
 was miserable sophistry to which the Court was obliged to 
 resort, that, as there was no one else acknowledged as King in 
 England, Charles II., while in exile, must be considered King 
 
 1 4 Pari. Hist. 120. 
 
76 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 de facto as well as de jure. The high cavaliers might be ex- 
 cused for wishing, by any means, to bring down vengeance on 
 Vane, because he was the chief cause of the death of 
 Strafford ; but Hyde should have remembered that he him- 
 self voted for Strafford's impeachment, and for his attainder. 
 
 He must likewise be severely blamed for suffering the ex- 
 humation of the bodies of Cromwell and some of his associates, 
 who had died before the Eestoration, — hanging them on a 
 gibbet, cutting off their heads, and offering other revolting 
 insults to their remains. — These atrocities were committed not 
 by order of the executive government, not by an act of the 
 legislature, but by the joint resolution of the two Houses of 
 parliament, who were now exceeding their jurisdiction as 
 clearly as they had ever done in the time of the Common- 
 wealth. Hyde must have put the resolution from the wool- 
 sack, and, as Speaker of the House of Lords, have issued the 
 directions to the Sheriff of Middlesex and the other officers of 
 the law to carry it into effect. If he did not actually support 
 the motion, he offered it no opposition or discountenance." 
 
 During the sitting of the Convention Parliament, which 
 continued about eight months, Hyde on some points had 
 rather a difficult game to play, for he was not sure of a ma- 
 jority of the House of Commons. After much trouble he 
 succeeded in carrying an equitable settlement respecting lay 
 property which had been alienated during the troubles. There 
 was a strong party who thought this a favourable opportunity 
 for re-distributing ecclesiastical property, and making a better 
 provision for the working clergy ; but Hyde successfully re- 
 sisted any such interference, "showing himself," says Burnet, 
 "more the Bishop's friend than the Church's," x and delaying 
 those reforms which have been introduced by Lord John 
 Russell and Sir Eobert Peel in the nineteenth century. 
 
 With regard to church government, being no doubt very 
 sincere and conscientious in the object he had in view, he was 
 exceedingly disingenuous and crafty as to the means he em- 
 ployed to accomplish it. He seems to have considered it his 
 duty to crush, the Presbyterians, and to re-establish the 
 Church of England on the most exclusive principles. But as 
 the Eestoration was to be brought about through the Presby- 
 terians, he held out to them flattering hopes by the Declara- 
 tion from Breda; and, as they were found still to be very 
 
 u 4 Pari. Hist. 158. Even the corpse of moved from its place of sepulture in Henry 
 the illustrior^ Blake was disinterred, and re- VII. 's chapel. x Burnet, i. 321. 
 
A.D. 1660. HE DUPES THE PRESBYTERIANS. 77 
 
 powerful on the King's return, ten of their most distinguished 
 ministers, including Baxter and Calamy, were made royal 
 chaplains, preaching in turn before the Court. Manchester 
 and other Presbyterian Peers were introduced into offices in 
 the household, and a modified Episcopacy, according to the 
 model of Archbishop Usher, was announced, — to which they 
 were ready to agree. A deputation of the Presbyterian clergy- 
 having delivered an address to the King, declaring their rea- 
 diness to make a union with the Episcopalians, Charles, in the 
 presence of the Chancellor, expressed his willingness to pro- 
 mote it; adding, that such union must be effected, "not by 
 bringing one party over to the other, but by abating some- 
 what on both sides ; that he was inclined to see it brought to 
 pass, and that he would draw them together himself; " — which 
 made a member of the deputation "burst into tears of joy, and 
 to declare the gladness this promise of his Majesty had put 
 into his heart." y 
 
 Conferences now took place between the divines on both 
 sides, and a manifesto was actually published in the King's 
 name as Head of the Church, — but the avowed production of 
 the Lord Chancellor, — announcing the basis of the settlement. 
 This paper, after commending the Church of England as "the 
 best fence against Popery," and extolling the moderation of 
 many of the Presbyterians, and asserting that on all essential 
 points the two parties cordially agreed, specified the modifica- 
 tions of Episcopacy to which the King intended to assent. 
 1. To take away all notion of the Bishops being restored to 
 the House of Lords, "that they do very often preach them- 
 selves in some church of their diocese, except they be hindered by 
 sickness or other bodily infirmities, or some other justifiable 
 occasion, which shall not be thought justifiable if it be fre- 
 quent. ' 2. That such a number of suffragan Bishops 
 should be appointed as might be sufficient for the service of 
 the church. 3. That Bishops should not censure or ordain with- 
 out the advice of their Presbyters, and that the Bishop should 
 act not singly, but as the president of an ecclesiastical board. 
 4. That the Liturgy should be revised by an equal number of 
 divines of both persuasions. 5. Subscription to the thirty-nine 
 articles was not to be required for ordination, institution, or 
 induction, or for degrees at the Universities. 
 
 There seems no doubt that all these proceedings were with 
 a view of amusing the Presbyterians till the Convention Par- 
 
 y Kennet, 183, 187. Calamy's Life of Baxter, 14-4. 
 
78 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 liainent might be dissolved and another assembled, more de- 
 voted to the purposes of the Court. The Presbyterian leaders 
 suspecting such an artifice, procured a select committee of the 
 House of Commons to be appointed to frame a bill which 
 should immediately convert the royal declaration into a law. 
 This committee met, and for their chairman elected the famous 
 Sir Matthew Hale, who without delay framed the bill, and 
 introduced it. Immediately after, he received an intimation 
 from the Chancellor that he was appointed Lord Chief Baron 
 of the Court of Exchequer. A more laudable appointment 
 never took place in Westminster Hall ; but we may well 
 suspect that it was prompted by a desire to remove from the 
 House of Commons the framer and supporter of this bill, as 
 well as by a knowledge of his great learning, ability, and 
 piety. The dependents of the Court now received instruc- 
 tions to vote against the bill ; Morrice, the Secretary of State, 
 made a long speech, abusing it as inconsistent with the true 
 doctrine of apostolical succession, and it was thrown out on 
 the second reading by a majority of 26 in a House of 340 
 members. z 
 
 The Convention Parliament was soon after dissolved. The 
 language of the Chancellor's parting speech to the two Houses 
 on this occasion was most conciliating, although he had cer- 
 tainly made up his mind to stand at all hazards by the ultra- 
 Episcopalians. " The King is a suitor to you," said he, " that 
 you will join with him in restoring the whole nation to its 
 primitive temper and integrity ; to its old good manners, its 
 old good humour, and its old good nature, — good nature, a 
 virtue so peculiar to you that it can be translated into no 
 other language, and hardly practised by any other people." a 
 
 I have now to relate a sad perplexity into which Hyde was 
 thrown, and from which he did not extricate himself with 
 much dignity. His daughter, Anne, having been placed, as we 
 have related, in the family of the Princess of Orange, accom- 
 panied her mistress to Paris on a visit to the Queen Henrietta. 
 James, Duke of York, then living with his mother, had early 
 displayed that taste for plain women which distinguished him 
 through life, b and he fell in love at first sight with Anne 
 Hyde, who, though possessed of wit and agreeable manners, 
 was without personal charms. c She had the address to draw 
 
 * 4 Pari. Hist. 141, 152. seemed to have been gi%'en to him for a 
 
 • Ibid, 126. penance by his priests. 
 
 fc Charles said that James's mistresses c " La Duchesse de Y:rk est fort laide; In 
 
A.D. 1659-60. HIS DAUGHTER MARRIED TO DUKE OF YORK. 79 
 
 from him first a ^erbal promise, and then a written contract to 
 marry her, before she admitted him to her bed. "When she 
 rejoined her father's family at the Eestoration, she n ov . 24, 
 was in a state of pregnancy. Notwithstanding his 1659 - 
 overacted surprise and horror when the news was afterwards 
 publicly announced to him by the King's orders, 
 there seems little doubt that she had communicated une ' 1660 ' 
 what had passed to both her parents, and that as he knew that 
 this amounted in point of law to a valid marriage, they re- 
 garded her as the wife of the Duke of York. Long before 
 any open declaration of the union, "the Earl of Southampton 
 and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper having dined together at the 
 Chancellor's— as they were returning home, Sir Anthony said 
 to Lord Southampton, Yonder Mrs. Anne Hyde is certainly married 
 to one of the brothers. The Earl, who was a friend to the Chan- 
 cellor, treated this as a chimera, and asked him how so wild a 
 fancy could get into his head. Assure yourself, replied he, it is 
 so. A concealed respect (however suppressed*) showed itself so plainly 
 in the looks, voice, and manner wherewith her mother carved to her, or 
 offered her of every dish, that it is impossible bid it must be so." d 
 
 Before the birth of her child, the lady (probably prompted 
 by her father that there might be clear evidence to prove her 
 status) prevailed upon the Duke to have the marriage cele- 
 brated according to the rites of the Church of England ; and 
 this ceremony took place privately at "Worcester House, the 
 Lord Chancellor's residence, — Dr. Crowther, chaplain to 
 James, officiating, — in the presence of Lord Ossory, who gave 
 away the bride, and of her niaid-servant for another witness. 
 
 The Duke now disclosed what had happened to the King, 
 and requested that he might be permitted to own her publicly 
 as his Duchess. Charles sent for Orniond and Southampton, 
 and desired them to consult the Chancellor. They began by 
 telling him, " that the Duke of York had owned a great affec- 
 tion for his daughter, and that the King much doubted she 
 was with child by the Duke, and that his Majesty required 
 their advice what was to be done." According to his own 
 
 bouche extraordinairement fendue, et les to kiss her hand, that " she was a plain 
 
 yeux fort ecailleux, mais tres courtoise." — woman like her mother." — i. 18S. 
 Journal de Monceris, p. 22. Count Anthony d Kennet's Begister, 381. " My Lord S., 
 
 Hamilton is more courtly, saying she had who thought it a groundless conceit then, 
 
 " l'air grand, la taille assez helle, et beaucoup was not long after convinced, by the Duke oJ 
 
 d" esprit." — Mem. Gram. i. 149. But honest York's owning of her, ' that Ashley was no 
 
 Pepys, on whom beauty was never thrown bad guesser.' " 
 away, tells us, after having had the honour 
 
80 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX. 
 
 statement, " lie broke out into a very immoderate passion 
 against the wickedness of his daughter," — said, in coarse 
 terms, he had rather she should be the Duke's mistress than 
 his wife, — shed floods of tears, — said he would consent to an 
 act of Parliament "for cutting off her head," — and hoped that 
 her presumption in aspiring to a royal alliance might be pu- 
 nished, in the first instance, by an immediate commitment to 
 the Tower. 6 
 
 Southampton, taken in by this ebullition, exclaimed, in 
 the King's presence, " that the Chancellor was mad, and had 
 proposed such extravagant things that he was no more to be 
 consulted with." f 
 
 Hyde now affected, in the exercise of his paternal rights, to 
 shut his daughter up in his house in order to prevent all 
 further interviews between her and the Duke of York, — at 
 which, however, he privately connived ; for, alluding to his 
 wife, he says that the attempt was rendered unsuccessful by 
 " those who knew they were married." In the mean time, 
 we learn from James himself, that, " with great caution and 
 circumspection, he did his part to soften the King, in that 
 matter, which, in every respect, seemed so much for his ad- 
 vantage." s Charles, with his usual careless good-nature, was 
 disposed to acquiesce ; but the mesalliance made his mother 
 and his eldest sister furious. Henrietta hastened over to pre- 
 vent so foul a disgrace to the royal houses of England and 
 France, and declared that, "whenever that woman should be 
 brought into Whitehall by one door, she herself would leave 
 the palace by another, and never enter it again." And the 
 Princess of Orange, who had recently arrived from Holland, 
 declared that " she would never yield precedence to a girl 
 who had stood as a servant behind her chair." The Duke of 
 Gloucester, the youngest brother, is likewise said to have de- 
 clared that " she smelt so strong of her father's green bag, that 
 he could not get the better of himself whenever he had the 
 misfortune to be in her presence." h 
 
 The courtiers were much puzzled as to the course they 
 should pursue, and James himself was thought to waver, — 
 when Sir Charles Berkeley, a profligate favourite of the Duke 
 
 e Life, i. 373. I see no reason to doubt the f Life, i. 378. 
 accuracy of this statement as others have S Life of James II. i. 287, which is con- 
 done; nor do I consider it at all inconsistent siderably at variance with Clarendon's own 
 with Clarendon's subsequent attempt "to representation that he would not hear of th« 
 soften the King." — See Lister's Life of Clar. marriage. 
 tL 69. h Burnet, i. 291 n. 
 
A.D. 1660; FALSU CHARGE AGAINST ANNE HYDE. 81 
 
 of York, boldly came to their aid, by affirming, with oaths, 
 that Anne had been his mistress under a promise of marriage, 
 and by bringing forward the Earl of Arran, Jermyn, Talbot, 
 and Killigrew, as witnesses of her loose and wanton be- 
 haviour, — " tous gens d'honneur," says the courtly author of 
 the Memoires de Grammont, " mais qui preferoient muniment 
 celui du Due de York a celui de Mademoiselle Hyde." 
 Berkeley went so far as to say that he claimed her as his own 
 wife. Pending these false accusations Anne was taken in 
 labour ; and, while she lay in the throes of childbirth, her 
 spiritual guide, Dr. Morley, Bishop-elect of Worcester, stand- 
 ing by the bedside, adjured her, in the name of the living 
 God, to speak the truth before the noble ladies who attended 
 by order from the King. To his questions she replied that the 
 Duke was the father of her child, — that they had been mar- 
 ried to each other by a priest before witnesses, — and that, 
 having met him a virgin, she had ever been faithful to his bed. 
 She then brought a male child into the world. 
 
 James, deeply touched by her situation, and pleased with 
 the birth of a son, who might one day mount the throne, on 
 her recovery showed a strong disposition to acknowledge her 
 if her character were cleared, — when Berkeley made an open 
 confession that the charges against her were wholly ground- 
 less, and that he had been induced to bring them forward, and 
 to suborn the witnesses to prove them, purely out of his regard 
 for the honour of the royal family. James, having returned 
 warm thanks for such extraordinary proofs of devoted zeal, 
 hurried off to the King, and had a long interview with him.' 
 The particulars were never made known, but the result was 
 favourable, for Berkeley and Lord Ossory were desired to 
 meet the Duke in an hour at Worcester House. Thither they 
 went, not at all foreseeing the denouement. This we have 
 from the Memoirs of De Grammont. " lis trouverent a l'heure 
 marquee son Altesse dans la chambre de Mademoiselle Hyde. 
 Ses yeux paroissoient mouilles de quelques l^rmes, qu'elle 
 s'efForcoit de retenir. Le Chancellier appuye contre la mu- 
 
 i The following letter from Charles to and In much passion she tould him that from 
 
 Hyde, which must have heen written a few the time he did any snch thing, she would 
 
 days before, is extant in the British Museum, never see his face more . I would he glad to 
 
 ~Lansdoun MSS. 1236. see you before you go tc the parliament, that 
 
 I may advise with you what is to he done; 
 
 " Thursday morning. for my brother tells me he will do whatever 
 
 " My brother hath spoken with the Queen I please." 
 yesterday concerning the owning of his sonn ; [Superscribed] — " For the Chancellor." 
 
 VOL. IV. Q 
 
82 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXIX 
 
 raille, leur parut bouffi de quelque chose. lis no douterent 
 point que ce ne fut de rage et de desespoir. Le Due d'York 
 leur dit de cet air content et serein dont on annonce les bonnes 
 nouvelles : ' Conime vous etes les deux homines de la Cour 
 que j'estime le plus, je veux que vous ayez les premiers 
 lhonneur de saluer la Duchesse d'York. La voila.' " 
 
 !Not the least wonderful part of the story is the Duchess's 
 conduct to her calumniator. Clarendon says, " the Duke had 
 brought Sir Charles Berkeley to the Duchess, at whose feet he 
 had cast himself with all the acknowledgment and penitence 
 he could express ; and she, according to the command of the 
 Duke, accepted his submission, and promised to forget the 
 offence ; " but, according to Hamilton, she went farther, and 
 praised the conduct of Berkeley and his associates, telling 
 them "that nothing marks more plainly the self-devotion 
 of an honourable man than de prendre un peu sur sa probite* 
 to serve the interest of a master or a friend." All this we 
 may believe of the daughter, when the stern old father gives 
 us this evidently subdued account of his own complaisance : — 
 " He came likewise to the Chancellor with those professions 
 which he could easily make ; and the oilier was obliged to receivt 
 him civilly.'''' m 
 
 The restoration of harmony in the royal family was faci- 
 litated by the sudden death of the Princess of Orange and the 
 Duke of Gloucester, and by a message from Cardinal Mazarine 
 to the Queen mother, " that if she wished to be well received 
 when she returned to the Court of France, she must be ex- 
 ceedingly civil to the Lord Chancellor, whom he was anxious 
 Jan. 1, to oblige." On the day before she left England, 
 1661. .fke j) u ]j e brought his wife to be presented to her for 
 the first time, and the " Queen," says Pepys, "is said to re- 
 ceive her now with much respect and love." n The new 
 Duchess supported her rank at Court with as much ease and 
 dignity as if she had never moved in an inferior station. 
 
 Her elevation by no means tended to the permanent stability 
 of the Chancellor ; but for a short time he was on terms of 
 cordiality with his son-in-law, and, if possible, in higher 
 favour with the King. 
 
 He was now raised to the peerage by the title of Baron 
 Hyde of Hindon, and shortly after he was created Viscount 
 Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon. On the application of the 
 
 k Anglice, " to tell a calumnious falsehood." 
 m Life, i;. 385, 393, 397. ■ Pepys, i. 166. 
 
A.D. 1661. FIRST PARLIAMENT OF CHARLES II. 83 
 
 Duke of York lie was likewise offered the Garter ; but thouo;ri 
 
 7 o 
 
 several of his predecessors had borne this distinction, he, 
 wisely declined it, thinking that it would bring hirn more 
 envy than advantage. He accepted a more substantial proof of 
 royal gratitude in a present of 20,000/. Charles at the same 
 time made him an offer of 10,000 acres of Crown land ; but 
 this he declined, saying, that "it was the principal part or 
 obligation of his office to dissuade the King from making any 
 grants of such a nature (except when the necessity or con- 
 venience was very notorious), and even to stop those which 
 should be made of that kind, and not to suffer them to pass 
 the Seal till he had again waited upon the King, and informed 
 him of the evil consequence of these grants, which discharge 
 of his duty could not but raise him many enemies, who should 
 not have that advantage to say that he obstructed the King's 
 bounty towards other men, when he made it very profuse 
 towards himself." 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXX. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS ACQUITTAL 
 WHEN EM PEACHED BY THE EARL OF BRISTOL. 
 
 Soon after the ceremony of the coronation, at which the Chan- 
 cellor appeared with his lately conferred dignity of May b, 
 an Earl, he had to meet the new parliament. Before 1661 - 
 its dissolution at the end of eighteen years, it gave abundant 
 opposition to the inclinations of the Court, but the great diffi- 
 culty at first was to repress its exuberant loyalty. Although 
 the Presbyterians had been so powerful in the Convention Par- 
 liament, only fifty-six of that persuasion were returned to the 
 present House of Commons, and almost all the other members 
 were taken from the hottest of the Cavaliers. The House of 
 Lords was tempered by a considerable number of liberal and 
 moderate Peers ; but the House of Commons was, at its outset, 
 the most intolerant, bigoted, slavishly inclined legislative 
 assembly which ever met in England, and greatly exceeded 
 the other House in the desire to fix the Church on the nar 
 
 ° Life, li. 408. 
 
 g2 
 
84 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXN. 
 
 lowest foundation, and to persecute all who should not rigidly 
 xmform to its doctrines and discipline. p 
 
 On the first day of the session, the King, having spoken at 
 greater length than usual, still referred the two Houses for a 
 farther explanation of his views to the Lord Chancellor. 
 Clarendon, knowing that the ecclesiastical measures which he 
 approved of were now completely in his power, prepared the 
 parliament for receiving them, and took a very unfair advan- 
 tage of the late mad and wicked insurrection of Venner and 
 the '• Millenarians," which was in reality as much condemned 
 
 ■ 
 
 and deplored by the Presbyterians, as by the members of the 
 
 Church of England. However, to check the Cavalier impe- 
 tuosity of the new parliament, he strongly inculcated upon 
 them the propriety of adhering to the Act of Indemnity. 
 
 The Commons, whether prompted by him I know not, 
 showed their spirit by beginning the session with a most un- 
 constitutional resolution, which was to be acted upon without 
 the consent of the Lords or the King, — "that all their mem 
 bers should forthwith take the sacrament according to the 
 rites of the Church of England on pain of expulsion from the 
 House." ?: To exasperate the public mind, he certainly en- 
 couraged the Lords to ioin the Commons in an order that " the 
 solemn League and Covenant " (which the reigning King had 
 signed) should be burnt by the hands of the common hang- 
 man. — along with the ordinances for the trial of the late Kir g, 
 for establishing a commonwealth, and for the securitv of the 
 person of the Lord Protector. r Zs o wonder that he after- 
 wards found extreme difficulty in prevailing upon them to 
 confirm the Act of Indemnity, notwithstanding his earnest re- 
 presentations that the promise of it had brought about the 
 Restoration, and that the faith of the King and of the nation 
 was pledged to it. ' 
 
 The declaration for union and comprehension which Claren- 
 don had drawn, and the King had published daring the Con- 
 vention Parliament, and Sir Matthew Hale's bill founded upon 
 it. of course were thought of no more. The first church bill 
 
 P "The representative;.' sivs Eapin, " for r lb 209. Snchprooeedirr- b -".hat from 
 
 the most part ■were elected agreeably to the the late troubles men of all parties had for- 
 
 wishes and without doubt by the influence of gotten the limits of the oons 
 
 the Court. This parliament mag I : -aid to of the two Houses, This House of Commonp 
 
 be composed by Chancellor Hyde, prime made orders directly on -ney and 
 
 minister. " The insane insurrection of Venner Solicitor-General to prosecute for high tres- 
 
 and the Millenarians had thrown much dis- son, without even the form of an address .1 
 
 credit on all dissenters. ^e Crown. 
 
 ^^L Hist. 203. ' 4 ParL Hist 20^-213. 
 
A.D. 1662. CORPORATION ACT— ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 85 
 
 which Clarendon introduced met with very little opposition, — 
 being to restore the Bishops to their seats in the House of 
 Lords. The act for their exclusion had passed in times of 
 great violence, and there was a general feeling that for the 
 dignity of the assembly of which they had ever formed a con- 
 stituent part, and for the honour and protection of the church, 
 thev should again exercise their parliamentary functions along; 
 
 ., CD X t/ O 
 
 with the hereditarv nobilitv. 
 
 Next came Clarendon's famous " Corporation Act," which, 
 contrary to the Declaration of Breda, — contrary to the repeated 
 promises of the King and the Chancellor afrer their return, — 
 contrary to the plain principles of justice and expediency, — 
 contrary to the respect and reverence due to the most solemn 
 institution of our holv religion which was to be desecrated, — 
 
 v CD 
 
 provided that no one should be elected to any corporate office, 
 who had not, within a vear before his election, taken the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's supper according to the rites of the Church 
 of England, — laying down a rule which was soon to be applied 
 to all civil offices and public employments. It was violently 
 opposed, but passed by large majorities, and it continued the 
 opprobrium of the Statute Book till, by the unwearied exer- 
 tions in the cause of civil and religious liberty of an illus- 
 trious patriot, it was repealed in our own time-. 
 
 Clarendon followed up this blow by the Act of Uniformity, 
 — which, on St. Bartholomew's day following, ejected 
 2000 ministers from their livings, — which, if rigidly 
 enforced (as it was intended to be), would have established a 
 system of persecution unparalleled in any Protestant country, 
 — and which, notwithstanding the succeeding Act of Toleration 
 annual indemnity acts, and other relaxations, has deprived the 
 Church of England of the support of these who now form the 
 Wesleyan and other powerful and pious persuasions, and has 
 considerably impaired her influence and usefulness. 
 
 It is remarkable that, although Clarendon himself presided 
 in the House of Lords, these and all the other violent measures 
 of the session were much less cordially received in that as- 
 eembly than in the House of Commons, where it was hardly 
 possible to restrain members from proceeding to extremities 
 against all who had ever submitted to the authority of the 
 
 CD 
 
 Commonwealth, or questioned the infallibility of Archbish< >p 
 Laud. For example, the Act of Uniformity was abundantly 
 stringent as Clarendon himself framed it ; but he tells us, that 
 no sooner did it come down to the Commons, " than every man. 
 
86 LORD CHANCELLOR ctAREXDON. Chap. LXXX. 
 
 according to his passion, thought of adding somewhat to i+ 
 that might make it more grievous to somebody whom he did 
 not love." The Lords had set apart one-fifth of the profits of 
 the livings from which the nonconforming clergy were to be 
 ejected, for their support, — as had been done by Elizabeth 
 when she enforced her Liturgy, and even by the Puritanical 
 Parliament when imposing the Presbyterian discipline ; — but 
 to this the Commons would by no means now consent ; — and 
 they insisted, that the required subscription should be ex- 
 tended to schoolmasters and tutors, to be enforced against them 
 by fine and imprisonment, as they had no livings to lose. 
 These alterations were not very disagreeable to the Chancellor, 
 for, after a conference between the two Houses, he advised 
 the Lords to agree to them. 
 
 At the conclusion of the session was celebrated the King's 
 inauspicious union with Catherine of Braganza. Clarendon 
 afterwards incurred great, and I think undeserved, odium for 
 having concurred in this match. It certainly would have 
 been much more desirable for the sake of the national religion 
 that Charles should have selected a Protestant princess from 
 Germany or the North of Europe. But to this he had an in- 
 superable objection, and the match with Catherine seemed as 
 little objectionable as an alliance with any other Eoman 
 Catholic family. Although the Spanish ambassador, who 
 wished by all means to break it off, publicly declared that the 
 Princess never could have children, this was properly treated 
 as a mere gratuitous and malignant assertion, and there is 
 not the slightest colour for the imputation afterwards cast 
 upon Clarendon of having designedly married the King to 
 a barren wife, that his own grandchildren might succeed to 
 the Crown. ' 
 
 He is not so easily defended for the part he took soon after 
 in trying to persuade the Queen to consent to Lady Castle- 
 maine, the King's avowed mistress, being one of the ladies oi 
 her bed-chamber. Catherine, having fainted away when this 
 person was presented to her, and having resisted the shame- 
 less application of the King to receive her as an attendant, the 
 Chancellor at first remonstrated with him by letter upon the 
 monstrous impropriety of his conduct, — when he received the 
 following reply: "I wish I may be unha]3py in this world 
 
 * From Charles's very minute and circum- highly pleased with her, and there seems t) 
 stantial letters to the Chancellor after meet- be r 9 doubt that she Afterwards miscarried 
 tng the Queen, it appears that he was at first 
 
A.D. 1662. HIS CONDUCT RESPECTING LADY CASTLEMAINE. 87 
 
 and in the world to come, if I faile in the least degree of what 
 1 have resolved, which is of making my Lady Castlemaine of 
 my wife's bed-chamber. I am resolved to go through with 
 this matter, let what will come on it ; which again I solemnly 
 sware before Almighty God ; therefure if you wish to have 
 the continuance of my friendship, meddle no more with this 
 business, except it be to bear down all false and scandalous 
 reports, and to facilitate what I am sure my honour is so much 
 concerned in ; and whosoever I find to be my Lady Castle- 
 maine's enemy in this matter, I do promise upon my word 
 to be his enemy as long as I live. You may show this letter 
 to my Lord Lieutenant, and if you have both a mind to oblige 
 me, carry vourselves like friends to me in this matter." 
 
 Considering that Clarendon wished to be a contrast to Buck- 
 ingham and Charles's other companions, who thought there 
 was no hami in such violations of morality and decency, — con- 
 sidering that he would not allow his own wife to visit any of 
 the royal mistresses, — that, unlike most of the other ministers 
 of state, he refused to call upon these ladies himself, or to hold 
 councils at their lodgings, — and that he affected uniform prim- 
 ness and fastidiousness of demeanour in the midst of a dissolute 
 Court, — it does seem most strange that such a mission should 
 have been proposed to him, and still more strange that he should 
 have accepted it. Certain it is. however, that he had several 
 interviews with Catherine, in which he in vain tried to argue 
 her into compliance. " The fire," he himself tells us, " flamed 
 higher than ever. The King reproached the Queen with stub- 
 bornness and want of duty, and she him with tyranny and 
 want of affection ; he used threats and menaces (which he never 
 intended to put in execution), and she talked loudly how ill 
 she was treated, and that she would return again to Portugal. 
 He replied, she would do iced first to know whether her mother icoidd 
 receive her, and he would give her a fit opportunity to know 
 that, by sending to their home all her Portuguese servants ; 
 for to them and their counsel he imputed all her perverse- 
 ness." u The grave and reverend head of English judicature, 
 the apostle of orthodoxy, the patron saint of the Church of 
 England, after an interval, again undertook the negotiation, 
 and earnestly advised the Queen that she should submit cheer- 
 fully to that which she could not prevent. She replied, " that 
 ner conscience would not sutler her to consent to what she 
 could not but suppose would be an occasion and opportunity 
 
 u Life, ii. 184. 
 
88 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXX. 
 
 of sin." Foiled by the native good sense and right feeling of 
 this uneducated woman, who had hardly ever been out of a 
 convent till she sailed for England, he threw up the commis- 
 sion, and prayed the King " that he might be no more con- 
 sulted with nor employed in an affair in which he had been 
 so unsuccessful." x Charles at last, by a series of personal 
 insults, himself contrived to break her spirit, and to induce 
 her to take Lady Castlemaine into special favour, so that " she 
 was merry with her in public, and in private used nobody 
 more friendly." 
 
 Clarendon's own solicitations are not more disgraceful to 
 him than his taunts upon the poor Queen for her tardy com- 
 pliance. "But," says he, "this sudden downfall and total 
 abandoning her own greatness, this low demeanour to a person 
 she had justly abhorred and worthily contemned, made all 
 men conclude that it was a hard matter to know her, and con- 
 sequently to serve her. And the King himself was so far 
 from being reconciled by it, that the esteem which he could 
 not hitherto but retain in his heart for her grew much less. 
 He concluded that all her former aversion expressed in those 
 lively passions, which seemed not capable of dissimulation, 
 was all fiction, and purely acted to the life by a nature crafty, 
 perverse, and inconsistent. He congratulated his own ill- 
 natured perseverance by which he had discovered how he wae 
 to behave himself hereafter, and what remedies he was to ap- 
 ply to all future indispositions ; nor had he ever after the same 
 value of her wit, judgment, and understanding which he had 
 formerly ; and was well enough pleased to observe, that the 
 reverence others had for all three was somewhat diminished." y 
 It is impossible not to suspect from such language, that the 
 minister participated in the exultation of the King, and that 
 they mixed their discussions upon the dry subject of the ne- 
 cessity for passing the "Corporation Act " and the "Act of 
 Uniformity " for the purpose of promoting pure religion, with 
 a few sallies upon the vanquished prudery of the Queen, and 
 the superior skill with which her husband had brought her to 
 reason, when " the Keeper of his Conscience " had failed. 
 
 Nevertheless, the superior virtue of the Chancellor shone out 
 very conspicuously in another affair which he has related to us, 
 very much to his own advantage. Bastide, the French ambas- 
 sador, having several points which he wished much to carry 
 for his court, particularly the restitution of Nova Scotia — in * 
 
 * Life. ii. 190. * Ibid 1C5. 
 
A.D. 1662. REFUSES A PRIVATE BRIBE FROM FRANCE. 89 
 
 conference with him at Worcester House, alluded very myste- 
 riously to the privations which had been endured by him 
 before the Restoration, to the jealous rivals who probably sur- 
 rounded one so powerful, and to the expediency of his creating 
 friends by acts of bounty, — and at last came out with the 
 declaration " that he had brought with him a present, which 
 in itself was small, but was only the earnest of as much every 
 year, which should be constantly paid, and more if he had 
 occasion to use it." His Excellency then produced bills of 
 exchange for 10,000Z., which would be paid that afternoon to 
 any persons who might be sent to receive the money. ' ' The 
 Chancellor had heard him with much indignation, and answered 
 him warmly, that if this correspondence must expose him to 
 such a reproach, he should not willingly enter into it, and 
 wished him to tell M. Fouquet that he would only receive 
 wages from his own Master. The gentleman so little looked 
 for a refusal, that he would not understand it, but persisted to 
 know who should receive the money, which should be paid in 
 such a manner- that the person who paid it should never know 
 to whom it was paid, and that it shall always remain a secret, 
 still pressing it with importunity till the other went with 
 manifest anger out of the room." 
 
 Soon after the King and the Duke, who were privy to all 
 Bastide's proceedings, called at Worcester House, and seeing 
 the Chancellor much discomposed, asked whether any thing 
 unfortunate had happened to him ? He stated to them ' ' with 
 much choler," the attempt that had been made upon his 
 virtue, whereupon they both burst out in loud laughter at 
 him, saying " the French did all their business that icay" and the 
 King told him "he was a fool" He then, as he assures us, 
 read the King a lecture on his levity and want of principle, 
 " beseeching him not to appear to his servants so unconcerned 
 in matters of this nature, and desiring him to consider what the 
 consequence of his receiving that money, with what secrecy 
 soever, must be ; that the French King must either believe 
 that he had received it without his own Sovereign's privity, 
 and so look upon him as a knave fit to be depended upon in any 
 treachery against his Master, or that it was with his Majesty's 
 approbation, which must needs lessen his esteem of him that 
 he should permit his servants of the nearest trust to grow rich 
 at the charge of another Prince, who might, the next day, be- 
 come his enemy." Charles smiled, and merely replied, " Few 
 men are so scrupulous ;" but before going away charged him to 
 
90 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXX. 
 
 cherish the correspondence with the French minister, which 
 might be useful, and could produce no inconvenience. 7 The 
 bribe was shortly after again offered and refused, but Claren- 
 don consented to accept for his library a present from the 
 French King of all the books printed at the Louvre. 
 
 Our Chancellor's private purity, as illustrated by this trans- 
 action, is very much to be commended ; but we must deeply 
 condemn his conduct as a constitutional minister in shortly 
 after soliciting a bribe for his Master, and teaching him to 
 become a pensioner of the French King. Bastide having once 
 more made an offer to him of pecuniary aid, "for the further- 
 ing the King of England's or his own interest at the next 
 parliament," he wrote for answer: — "We cannot have more 
 reason to be confident of any thing than of the good temper 
 and great affection of the parliament, which is now shortly to 
 meet, and we have many matters of greater importance to 
 settle with them than the procuring of money till the other 
 things are done, and yet you will easily believe that the King, 
 before that time, may be in some straits which he will not 
 willingly own. If this should fall out to be the case, do you 
 believe, if the King desires it, that the King of France will 
 lend him 50.000 7 . for ten or twelve months, in which time it 
 shall be punctually repaid ? ' : This petition was, of course, 
 joyfully granted. 
 
 Although the monev was to be received from a foreign state 
 without the knowledge of parliament, and was to be partly 
 employed in bribing members of the House of Commons, and 
 the receipt of it was necessarily to make England subservient 
 to France, it is remarkable that Clarendon does not seem to 
 have had the least consciousness of any impropriety in nego- 
 tiating the bribe under the name of loan, and seems to have 
 thought his own conduct as innocent as in obtaining contribu- 
 tions to pay Charles's tradesmen at Cologne or Bruges. But 
 he must be considered answerable for having originated and 
 sanctioned that shameful dependence of Charles upon Louis 
 XIV., which is the greatest reproach of this reign. He after- 
 wards used some big words in the dispute about our naval 
 rights, which made the French King complain of " the hau- 
 teur of the Chancellor;" but the encourager of bribes soon 
 found himself obliged to submit. 
 
 Clarendon was next engaged in a transaction which raised a 
 terrible cry against him, and in which I think his conduct 
 
 * Life of Clarendon, ii. 521—524. Burnet, i. 235. 
 
A.D I6G2. SALE OF DUNKIRK. 91 
 
 was by no means blameless— the sale of Dunkirk. There is 
 no ground whatever for believing that, in the course of it, he 
 was guilty of private corruption by the secret receipt of mo- 
 ney for his own use. The retention of the place by England 
 was perhaps hardly desirable, from the expense it occasioned, 
 and the temptation it offered to engage in continental wars, 
 although it greatly flattered the pride of the nation, who de- 
 lighted in this acquisition as a substitute for Calais, and it was 
 regarded, like Beiwick and Gibraltar in other times, as a proof 
 of the prowess of England in possessing a strong fortress on 
 the territory of a rival state. But the manner in which it was 
 alienated in the time of profound peace, without the know- 
 ledge of parliament, for a sum of money to supply the expense 
 of the profligate pleasures of the Sovereign, seems to me 
 deserving of severe censure, — which falls almost exclusively 
 on the Chancellor. 
 
 So lately as the 19th of May, 1662, he himself had said in a 
 speech in the House of Lords, " Whosoever unskilfully mur- 
 murs at the expence of Dunkirk and the other new acquisi- 
 tions, which ought to be looked upon as jewels of an immense 
 magnitude in the royal diadem, do not enough remember what 
 we have lost by Dunkirk, and should always do, if it were in 
 an enemy's hands." Yet in the month of October following, 
 he signed a treaty by which Dunkirk was sold to Fiance fur 
 five millions of livres, to be paid into the private purse of 
 the King of England. He stoutly denies that he was the author 
 of the measure, and Louis X1Y. boasts that his ambassador, 
 d'Estrades, dexterously put it into the head of Charles, although 
 Charles himself said that it was first proposed to him by the 
 Chancellor. The former supposition is more probable, but 
 hardly in any appreciable degree mitigates the misconduct of 
 the minister, for he admits that he adopted it, and earnestly 
 carried it forward. He even privately instructed the King 
 how it was to be propounded to the Council, as we learn from 
 a written communication between them, which is still extant : 
 — King. "Am not I to break this business of Dunkirke ? " — 
 Chan. " Yes : and first declare that you have somewhat of im- 
 portance to propose, and therefore that you will have a close 
 counsell, and that the claike withdraw : then state it as you 
 resolved." — King. " I think the first opening of the matter 
 must oe upon Monsieur d'Estrade's desire of having the 
 place. 1 ' — Chan. "No: but upon severall representacions my 
 Lord Treasurer hath made to you : Of your expences,, Ijow farr 
 
92 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXX. 
 
 they exceed your receipts : That you have spent some tyme 
 in the consideracions how to improve the one and to lessen 
 the other : That you finde the expence of Dunkirke to be 
 130,0002. a yeere : You finde if it were fitt to parte with it, you 
 could not only take off that expence, but do believe you might 
 get a good sum of money. Aske the advice of the Board in an 
 affayre of this moment." 
 
 Clarendon strove hard to make a good pecuniary bargain, 
 and probably could not have got a higher price from any other 
 customer, although Louis boasted of having overreached him 
 by pretending that he had no ready money, and then discount- 
 ing his own acceptances. a The proceeds were thrown into the 
 lap of the Countess of Castlemaine, and the Chancellor's splen- 
 did new mansion now rising in Piccadilly, received from the 
 multitude the name of " Dunkirk House." 
 
 Hitherto the King had been entirely under the guidance of 
 Clarendon ; but at length they had a difference, and though 
 it was only by slow degrees that the pupil could get rid of his 
 master, all cordiality between them was gone. Charles, while 
 in exile, had been secretly reconciled to the Catholic Church, 
 and though, in general, very little subject to religious impres- 
 sions, yet at times he was desirous of making atonement for his 
 immoralities by doing what might be agreeable to his spi- 
 ritual guides. The Act of Uniformity, if strictly enforced, 
 would operate most oppressively against the Roman Catholics. 
 He was very willing to give them some relief, but could here 
 expect no assistance from the Chancellor. Nicholas was re- 
 moved from the office of Secretary of State, and was replaced 
 by Sir Henry Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, who " had 
 the art of managing the temper of the King beyond all other 
 men of that time," b and, to please him, had himself become a 
 Papist. The question of indulgence was now brought for- 
 ward before the Council, when Bennet maintained that the 
 King, as Head of the Church, possessed the right of suspend- 
 ing all penal laws in matters of religion, — a doctrine which 
 Clarendon now controverted. In spite of his opinion, and, 
 as he asserts, without his being consulted on the propriety of 
 such a step, a royal Declaration, drawn by Bennet, came out, 
 in which his Majesty was made to say, " as fur what concerns 
 the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not con- 
 form themselves to the discipline and government of the 
 Church of England through scruple and tenderness of mis- 
 
 » CEcvresde Louis XIV. i. 175. D'Estrades, i. 286, 343. b Burnet. 
 
A.D. 1663. DECLINES IN FAVOUR— STATE OF THE COURT. 93 
 
 guided conscience, but modestly and without scandal perform 
 their devotions in their own way, he should make it his spe- 
 cial care, so far as in him lay, without invading the freedom of 
 parliament, to incline their wisdom next approaching session 
 to concur with him in making such act for that purpose as 
 may enable him to exercise, with a more universal satisfaction, 
 that power of dispensing which he conceived to be inherent in 
 the Crown." 
 
 When Parliament met, Clarendon was confined by illness, 
 and the King opened the session with a speech ex- a d 
 pressing his zeal for Protestantism, but caused a bill 
 to be introduced in the House of Lords, by the Lord Privy 
 Seal, to enable him to dispense with all laws requiring sub- 
 scription or obedience to the doctrine and discipline of the 
 established Church. In the first day's debate on this bill, in 
 the absence of Clarendon, it was stoutly opposed by Lord 
 Southampton and the Bishops, but boldly supported by Lord 
 Ashley, Lord Eobartes, and other Peers, who wished to pay 
 court to the Sovereign. The debate was adjourned, and the 
 result considered doubtful. Lnder these circumstances the 
 Chancellor, next morning, left his sick bed, came down to the 
 House, and made such an uncompromising and powerful speech 
 against the bill, that the second reading was postponed, and it 
 was never again resumed. 
 
 But his favour with the King was turned into loathing, and 
 this change being very visible, there was a general disposition 
 among the courtiers to annoy him, — which induced him to 
 write to his friend Orcnond, " I have had so unpleasant a life 
 as that, for my own ease and content, I rather wished myself 
 at Breda, and have hardly been able to restrain myself from 
 making that suit." c 
 
 Pepys gives us a most lively description of the state of the 
 Court at this time. " It seems the present favourites now are 
 my Lord Bristol, Duke of Buckingham, Sir H. Bennet, my 
 Lord Ashley, and Sir Charles Berkeley ; who, amongst them, 
 have cast my Lord Chancellor on his back past ever getting 
 up again, there being now little for him to do; and he 
 waits at Court, attending to speak to the King, as others 
 do. The King do mind nothing but pleasure. If any of the 
 counsellors give him good advice, and move him to any thing 
 that is to his good and honour, the other part, which are his 
 counsellors of pleasure, take him when he is with my Lady 
 
 c April 11, 1663. 
 
94 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXX. 
 
 Castlemaine, and in a humour of delight, and then persuade 
 him that he ought not to listen to the advice of those old 
 dotards or counsellors that were heretofore his enemies, when, 
 God knows ! it is they that, now-a-days, do most study his 
 honour." d 
 
 Clarendon was saved from the impending peril, and enabled 
 to continue some years longer in office, by the rash attempt of 
 an enemy to precipitate his fall. On the 10th of July, to the 
 astonishment of all, except a very few who were in the secret, 
 the Earl of Bristol rose in his place in the House of Lords, and 
 produced a paper in his own hand-writing, and signed with 
 his name, containing " Articles of impeachment for high trea- 
 son and other misdemeanours against the Lord High Chan- 
 cellor." He told the Lords " that he could not but observe 
 that, after so glorious a return with which God had blessed 
 the King and the nation, so that all the world had expected 
 that the prosperity of the kingdom would have far exceeded 
 the misery and adversity that it had for many years endured, 
 and after the parliament had contributed more to it than ever 
 parliament had done ; notwithstanding all which it was evi- 
 dent to all men, and lamented by those who wished well to 
 his Majesty, that his affairs grew every day worse and worse ; 
 the Kins: himself lost much of his honour and the affection he 
 had in the hearts of the people ; that, for his part, he looked 
 upon it with as much sadness as any man, and had made 
 inquiry, as well as he could, from whence this great mis- 
 fortune, which every body was sensible of, could proceed ; and 
 that he was satisfied, in his own conscience, that it proceeded 
 principally from the power and credit of the Chancellor ; and 
 therefore he was resolved, for the good of his country, to 
 accuse the Lord Chancellor of high treason." He concluded 
 by desiring that the articles might be read. They charged that 
 the Chancellor had arrogated to himself the direction of all his 
 Majesty's affairs, both at home and abroad ; that he had applied 
 to the Pope for a Cardinal's cap for Lord Aubigny ; that some 
 of his friends had said, " Were it not for my Lord Chancellor 
 standing in the gap, Popery would be introduced ;" that he 
 had concluded the King's marriage without due agreement 
 how it should be solemnised ; that he and his adherents had 
 uttered gross scandals against the King's course of life; that 
 he had advised and effected the sale of Dunkirk ; that he had 
 told the King the House of Lords was weak and inconsider- 
 
 d Pepys, ii. 38. 
 
A..D. 1664. IMPEACHED BY THE EARL OF BRISTOL. 95 
 
 able ; and that lie had enriched himself and his creatures by 
 the sale of offices. 
 
 The Chancellor, leaving the woolsack, made a pointed and 
 animated defence, contending that all the charges which were 
 not quite frivolous were false ; that none of them amounted to 
 treason ; and that an impeachment for treason could not thus 
 be commenced by one Peer against another, — upon which 
 points he desired that the Judges might be consulted. 
 
 The Judges being summoned pronounced their unanimous 
 opinion by the mouth of Lord Chief Justice Bridgeman, that 
 the prosecution was not duly commenced, and that if the 
 charges were all admitted to be true, there was nothing of 
 treason in them. The King, seeing the result, very irregularly 
 sent a message to the Lords telling them that in the articles he 
 finds many matters of fact charged, which upon his own certain 
 knowledge are untrue. The Lords resolved, nemine dissentiente, 
 that they concurred with the Judges, and they dismissed the 
 prosecution, with a strong censure of the Earl of Bristol for 
 the manner in which he had brought it forward. Warrants 
 were issued for his apprehension, and he was obliged to remain 
 in concealment for some years. 6 
 
 Clarendon's enemies were completely disheartened and con- 
 founded by this failure, and he seemed again firmly seated 
 in power; but although the chief direction of affairs was 
 restored to him, Charles watched impatiently for a favourable 
 opportunity entirely to emancipate himself from his minister. 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS FALL 
 
 Clarendon was prevented by illness from being present at the 
 opening of the session of parliament, which began in A D 1664 
 March, 1664, but he prompted Charles's address to 
 the two Houses delivered on that occasion. The doctrine was 
 not yet recognised that the Boyal speech is the speech of the 
 minister, or he would have been liable to very severe censure 
 for the language now uttered. The House of Commons having 
 
 • 4 Pari. Hist. 276. i Life, ii. 256. Burnet, i. 358. 
 
96 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXI. 
 
 sat three years, objections were started that under the Tri- 
 ennial Act, to which Charles I. had regularly given his assent, 
 it had, in point of law, ceased to exist. " I confess to you, my 
 lords and gentlemen," said the King, " I have often myself 
 read over that bill, and though there is no colour for the fancy 
 of the determination of this parliament, yet I will not deny 
 to you that I have always expected that you would, and even 
 wondered that you have not, considered the wonderful clauses 
 in that bill, which passed in a time very uncareful for the 
 dignity of the Crown or the security of the people. I need 
 not tell you how much I love parliaments. Never King was 
 so much beholden to parliaments as I have been; nor do I 
 think the Crown can ever be happy without frequent par- 
 liaments. But assure yourselves, if I should think otherwise, 
 1 would never suffer a parliament to come together by the means pre- 
 scribed by that bill." 
 
 " So audacious a declaration, equivalent to an avowed design 
 in certain circumstances of preventing the execution of the 
 laws by force of amis, was never before heard from the lips 
 of an English King, and would in any other times have 
 awakened a storm of indignation from the Commons." s But a 
 repealing act rapidly passed both Houses, providing merely 
 that parliaments should not be intermitted more than three 
 years, but furnishing no remedy for the enforcement of the 
 rule, — a provision which was found nugatory in the course of 
 this very reign. Clarendon's ecclesiastical jDolicy has excited 
 so much attention, that he has escaped the blame he deserves 
 for having been instrumental in removing this constitutional 
 barrier, whereby he hurried on the destruction of the family 
 whose power he wished to extend. 
 
 He now gained immense applause from the ultra-high- 
 church party, by passing the " Conventicle Act," the object 
 of which was wholly to prevent the public celebration of 
 religious worship, except according to the ceremonies of the 
 Church of England, — by enacting that every meeting of more 
 than five persons, in addition to the members of the family, 
 for religious purposes, not in accordance with the established 
 Liturgy, should be held to be a seditious and unlawful conven- 
 ticle, and that any person above sixteen years of age, on con- 
 
 6 Hall. Const. Hist. ii. 448. It has been pulsory clauses of the Triennial Act should 
 suggested that the speech meant no more never come into operation ; but I thiDk the 
 than that the King would take care, by the plain meaning is. that he would set them at de- 
 frequent calling of parliaments, that the com- fiance. — See Lister s Life o/Clarendon, ii. 28ft. 
 
A.D. 1G65. THE DUTCH WAR. 97 
 
 viction before a single justice, might be punished by a fine of 
 51. or imprisonment during three months for the first offence, 
 10/. or six months for the second offence, and 100?. or transporta- 
 tion for the third offence. 
 
 This was followed up a few months after with the " Five Mile 
 Act," which completed the " Clarendonian Code," 
 enacting that all nonconforming clergymen should 
 make oath that it was not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, 
 to take arms against the King or against those commissioned by 
 him, and that they icould riot at any time endeavour any alteration of 
 government in Church or State, — and that whoever would not swear 
 this oath should be rendered incapable of teaching in schools, 
 and should be forbidden under pain of fine and imprisonment to 
 abide within five miles of any city corporate or borough town 
 sending members to parliament, or any place where he had exer- 
 cised his ministry. This outrageous bill, though brought in 
 by the ministry, was opposed by Southampton, the Lord Trea- 
 surer, who declared he could take no such oath himself; for 
 how firm soever he had always been to the Church, yet as 
 things were managed he did not know but he himself might 
 see cause to endeavour an alteration ; b but Clarendon rebukes 
 his friend for too great indulgence to the Presbyterians, and 
 praises the parliament which passed this act " for entirely 
 sympathising with his Majesty, and having passed more acts 
 for his honour and security than any other had ever done in so 
 short a session." ' No one can doubt his sincerity or his disin- 
 terestedness, for he was not only making himself obnoxious: 
 both to the dissenters and the Eoman Catholics, but he was like- 
 wise fully aware that the line of policy he pursued on these 
 questions was highly distasteful to the King, who was for 
 liberty of conscience and of worship, for the sake of the reli- 
 gion he had embraced. We can only deeply regret the Chan- 
 cellor's growing bigotry, and his utter forgetfulness of the 
 solemn engagements into which he had entered. 
 
 The .Dutch war was now undertaken, from commercial jea- 
 lousy on the part of the English nation, and from the King's 
 hope of diverting to private purposes a part of the supplies 
 voted by parliament for carrying it on. To the honour of 
 Clarendon, he, with his friend Southampton, steadily opposed 
 it as unjust and impolitic. According to the maxims which 
 then prevailed, he considered himself authorised, however, to 
 remain in office and publicly to defend the policy of the Go 
 
 h Burnet, i. 390. « Life, iii 1. 
 
 VOL. IV. H 
 
93 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXI. 
 
 vernment which, he privately condemned. Being still unable 
 to be present at the opening of a new session in November, 
 he prepared " a Narrative of the late Passages between his 
 Majesty and the Dutch, and his Majesty's Preparations there- 
 upon," which the King, after his own speech, handed in, and 
 which was read in his presence. This was in the nature of a 
 manifesto to justify hostilities, and concluded with an earnest 
 exhortation to the two Houses to enable the King, by liberal 
 supplies, to prosecute the war with vigour, and so to obtain 
 an honourable peace. Conferences were held at Worcester 
 House with the leading members of the House of Commons as 
 to the most expedient mode of conducting the business of the 
 government in that assembly, where motions of supply were 
 still made by independent members, and the ostensible office of 
 government leader was unknown. Charles himself used occa- 
 sionally to attend these meetings. Clarendon has left us a 
 curious account of one of them held in his own bed-chamber, 
 when he was confined by the gout, the question being, " whe- 
 ther the government should agree to a proposal, strongly 
 supported in the House of Commons, that the money voted 
 should be appropriated to particular services, instead of 
 forming a general fund to be applied at the pleasure of the 
 Crown ? " Sir George Downing ventured to express an opi- 
 nion in favour of this course, — which threw the old Chancel- 
 lor into a towering passion, and, — joined to " the extremity of 
 the pain which at that time he endured in his bed," — drew 
 from him this reprimand, " that it was impossible for the King 
 to be well served whilst fellows of his condition were ad- 
 mitted to speak as much as they had a mind to, and that in 
 the best times such presumption had been punished with im- 
 prisonment by the Lords of the Council." But the King was 
 not pleased to see a leading member of the House of Commons 
 so put down, and took his side, — probably from the fear that, 
 without the appropriation, the supply would not be granted, 
 and hoping when he had once got the money to divert it to his 
 own purposes. 
 
 The next motion in the House of Commons alarmed the 
 Chancellor much more, being for the appointment of Commis- 
 sioners to superintend the expenditure of the poll tax and 
 other taxes. This was carried by a majority of 119 to 83, 
 though, according to Pepys, " it was mightily ill taken by all 
 the Court party, as a mortal blow that struck deep into the 
 King's prerogative, and though when the division was ex- 
 
A.D. 1666. SUPPORTS FREE TRADE WITH IRELAND. 99 
 
 pected the King had given order to my Lord Chamberlain to 
 send to the pla} T houhes and brothels to bid all the parliament- 
 men that were there to go to the parliament presently." k 
 
 It seems very strange to us that Clarendon should advise 
 the King to resist the inquiry into the public expenditure — 
 which he considered as bad as any thing attempted by the 
 Long Parliament, saying " that this was such a new encroach- 
 ment as had no bottom ; and that the scars were yet too fresh 
 and green of those wounds, which had been inflicted upon the 
 kingdom from such usurpation : and therefore he desired his 
 Majesty to be firm in the resolution he had taken, and not to 
 depart from it." m 
 
 Charles pretended to follow his advice by appointing Lord 
 Ashley treasurer of prize-money, with a provision " that he 
 should account for all monies received by him to the King 
 himself, and to no other person whatsoever." Clarendon re- 
 monstrated, arguing that such a patent was unprecedented ; 
 that it would cause the King to be defrauded ; and that it 
 was an offensive encroachment on the office of Lord Treasurer. 
 He might have added, that it was an expedient to facilitate 
 the peculation meditated by his Majesty. Charles here was 
 " firm in the resolution he had taken, and would not depart 
 from it, for the King sent the Chancellor a positive order to 
 seal the commission, which he could no longer refuse." n 
 
 In the next controversy in which Clarendon was engaged he 
 gained much credit with the judicious, although he 
 was denounced by the landed interest as "a friend of 
 free trade." The importation of cattle from Ireland had lately 
 considerably increased, and the landlords of England, headed 
 by the Duke of Buckingham, instead of pretending to stand 
 up as the advocates of the tenant-farmers, or of the labourers, 
 or of the public, plainly spoke out, "that, from a fall in the 
 price of cattle, their rents were lowered to the amount of 
 200,000/. a-year, which they could not afford." A bill was 
 therefore brought in absolutely to prohibit such importation in 
 future ; this was followed by another bill, equally to prohibit 
 the importation of any cured meat or provisions from Ireland, 
 and to guard against the pretence that these were merely 
 
 k Pepys, iii 102, 103. m Life, iii. 132. maxims of royal impeccability and ministerial 
 
 n Life of Clarendon, ii. 340. We have here responsibility were yet imperfectly under- 
 
 anotber instance of the notion tben prevailing stood. Resignation instead of compliant a 
 
 that any act was excused by the personal was never thought of.— See Life of Lord 
 
 jirtkr of the Sovereign. The correlative Keeper Herbert, ante, vol. iii. p. 401. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. l.XXXI. 
 
 fiscal regulations, which the King might render nugatory by 
 his dispensing power, the prohibited trade was declared to be 
 " a nuisance." Both bills passed the Commons by great ma- 
 jorities, and when they came to the Lords, the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham observed that il they could not be opposed by any who 
 had not Irish estates or Irish understandings." ° The Chan- 
 cellor, however, had the courage to deliver a most admirable 
 speech against them, pointing out the injustice of these mea- 
 sures to our fellow-subjects in Ireland, and the impolicy of 
 them with a view to English manufactures, the demand for 
 which from Ireland must cease, — and even to English agricul- 
 ture, which could not fail to prosper with the increased pros- 
 perity produced by a free interchange of commodities between 
 the two islands. He was told, however, that the heavily-taxed 
 English could not enter into a competition in the breeding of 
 cattle with the lightly-taxed Irish, and that without the pro- 
 posed "protection" tenants would be bankrupt, labourers 
 must come upon the parish, and the kingdom must be ruined. 
 He was shamefully beaten in all the divisions on the bill, and 
 all that he could effect was, in the Committee, to carry an 
 amendment, by 63 to 47, to strike out the word " nuisance," 
 and to insert " detriment and mischief" in its stead. The 
 Chancellor's amendment set the Commons in a flame, and 
 many sarcasms were uttered upon the presumption of a lawyer, 
 who had hardly inherited an acre from his father, either in 
 Ireland or England, pretending to speak upon such a subject. 
 Several conferences took place between the two Houses, the 
 King for some time, at the request of the Duke of Ormond, 
 supporting the Chancellor ; but the Squires declared that they 
 had not yet completed the supplies, and that they would stop 
 them at all hazards if they were to be thus dictated to by wild 
 theorists, who had no practical knowledge of the breeding of 
 cattle, or of the true interests of the country. Charles became 
 alarmed lest no more money should be granted to carry on the 
 war and to satisfy the rapacity of his mistresses ; the friends of 
 the Court in the House of Lords were instructed to agree to 
 the contested word, and the bill received the ioval assent with 
 the clause declaring that the importation of Irish cattle and 
 provisions was " to the common nuisance of all his Majesty's 
 subjects residing in England." p This happened in the " annus 
 
 ° Ossory, the son of the Lord Lieutenant, Black Rod. 
 In consequence sent him a challenge, but P Lords' Journ. Dec. 20, 29, 1666. Jan. 3. 
 they were both taken into the custody of the 12, 14, 1667. 
 
A.D. 1667. PUBLIC CALAMITIES. 101 
 
 mirabilis" and was of more permanent injury to the country 
 than the Plague or the Fire of London. 
 
 I have no doubt that the part which Clarendon took ©n the 
 Irish question contributed to his fall quite as much as the un- 
 fortunate termination of the Dutch war, to which it has been 
 generally ascribed. 
 
 For the conduct of that war he was not answerable more 
 than for its commencement. He strove to influence the votes 
 of both Houses in its favour, and likewise to obtain supplies 
 from the Commons for carrying it on, but these were handed 
 over to Charles's profligate companions, and shamefully mis- 
 applied. The consequence was, that while the negotiations 
 for a peace were going forward, — by the energy of De AYitt, 
 the Dutch fleet, under the command of De Euyter, took Sheer- 
 ness, burnt the dockyard at Chatham, sunk several English 
 ships of war in the Thames, sailed up the river as high as 
 Gravesend, were expected next tide at London Bridge, and 
 after blockading the port of London, and insulting the English 
 coast on the German Ocean and on the Channel for some 
 weeks, withdrew at their leisure to their own har- j u iy 10, 
 bours. The peace of Breda soon removed the appre- 1667, 
 hension of invasion ; but the disgrace which the nation had 
 suffered sunk deep into the public mind, and the present times 
 were necessarily contrasted with those when Blake humbled 
 the power of Spain, and the English flag rode triumphant on 
 every sea. 
 
 Other circumstances concurred to depress the spirits of the 
 nation to an unparalleled degree. Most families were in mourn- 
 ing for the loss of relations in the plague ; the metropolis was 
 still lying in ruins from the great fire by which it had been 
 destroyed in the autumn of the preceding year ; foreign trade 
 was almost extinguished ; and numerous classes of labourers 
 at home were entirely without employment or support. 
 
 Clarendon was ostensibly the prime minister, and the mul- 
 titude, without giving themselves the trouble of any discri- 
 mination, passionately pronounced him the author of all their 
 sufferings. Soon after the Eestorarion, he had been thus ad- 
 dressed by Dryden : 
 
 " Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, 
 That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind ; 
 While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, 
 That rapid motion does but rest appear ; 
 Yet unimpaired with labours or with time, 
 Your age but seems to a new youth to climb," 
 
102 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXI. 
 
 But when the alarming news arrived that the Dutch fleet 
 was at Gravesend, a mob broke the windows of his new palace, 
 and painted a gibbet on his gate, with this rude rhyme : 
 
 " Three sights to be seen, 
 Dunkirk, Tangiers, and a barren Queen." 
 
 This magnificent structure had risen amidst the national 
 disasters, and he had very recently taken possession of it. 
 Reckless charges being circulated against him of bribery from 
 the Dutch and the Portuguese, as well as the French, its usual 
 name of " Dunkirk House " was sometimes made to give place 
 to that of "Holland House" and "Tangier Hall." q Even 
 sacrilege was imputed to him because he had purchased cer- 
 tain materials which had been destined for the repair of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral. Persons of superior condition sanctioned, 
 without believing, these calumnies ; and the following epigram 
 from Andrew Marvell, though more remarkable for malignity 
 than wit, suited the general taste, and was in every body's 
 mouth : — 
 
 " Here lie the sacred bones 
 Of Paul, beguil'd of his stones : 
 Here lie golden briberies, 
 The price of ruin'd families ; 
 The cavalier's debenture wall, 
 Fix'd on an eccentric basis ; 
 Here's Dunkirk town and Tangier Hall, 
 The Queen's marriage and all ; 
 The Dutchman's templum pacts." r 
 
 Clarendon had lately lost his firm friend and supporter, 
 Lord Southampton ; and, unfortunately, there was no sect or 
 party in the country to stand by him when assailed by such a 
 tide of unpopularity. The Dissenters regarded him with ab- 
 horrence, as the perfidious schemer of all the measures by 
 which they had been oppressed. He was equally disliked by 
 the Catholics, as the person who defeated all the King's inten- 
 tions to favour them. Even the ungrateful Bishops, he tells 
 us, were dissatisfied with him, for not doing more to put down 
 schism, " which produced a greater coldness from some of 
 them towards him, and a greater resentment from him, who 
 thought he had deserved better from their function and their 
 persons, than was in a long time, if ever, perfectly recon- 
 
 *l Pepys, iii. 251. Tangiers, part of the but it had been found only a source of useless 
 dowry of Queen Catherine, he had boasted of expense. The other two taunts are obvious 
 aa an important acquisition to the Crow i, enough. r JUarvell's Works, iii. 342. 
 
A.D. 1667. MIMICKED AT COURT. 103 
 
 ciled." s Tlie orthodox clergy generally regarded him with ill 
 will, as the author of a proclamation in which they had been 
 cht.rged with drunkenness. 1 The unrewarded cavaliers, be- 
 cause he had stopped some improvident grants, ascribed to 
 him all their disappointments. He had given mortal offence 
 to the present House of Commons by an opinion, in which the 
 best constitutional authorities concur with him, that the par- 
 liament, having been prorogued on the 8th of February to the 
 10th of October, the King could not summon it to meet at an 
 earlier day, even on the apprehension of a Dutch invasion, 
 and that the onlv legal course was to dissolve the existing 
 parliament, and instantly to call another. 
 
 The King had uever forgiven his opposition to the bill " for 
 indulgence to tender consciences," and now rather rejoiced 
 both at the well and the ill founded accusations brought 
 against him. Buckingham, Killigrew, and the other wits of 
 the Court, who were in the habit of ridiculing the Chancellor 
 for the amusement of Charles and Lady Castlemaine, ventured 
 more and more boldly upon the broad buffoonery of exhibiting 
 him marching in procession with pompous gait to the Court 
 of Chancery, — a pair of bellows and a fire-shovel being earned 
 before him, like the Great Seal and the mace. These mimicries, 
 which the King encouraged by his laughter, while he affected 
 to reprove them, by degrees entirely obliterated his respect 
 for his old monitor, and gave him courage to assert his own 
 freedom. 11 
 
 But what most deeply affected the royal mind was, the 
 Chancellor's conduct respecting "la belle Stuart." Charles 
 was believed to have been more tenderly attached to this lady 
 than to any of her sex, for whom he had ever professed admi- 
 ration ; but she, though admitting his approaches in a manner 
 
 8 Life of Clar. ii. 150. ner of speaking, the skill in mimicry being 
 1 4 Pari. Hist 382. the best faculty in wit many of them had. 
 u The part of the Chancellor was supported But by these liberties, which at first only 
 by Buckingham, who is said most felicitously raised laughter, they by degrees got the hardi- 
 to have imitated " the stately stalk of that ness to censure both the persons, counsels, 
 solemn personage." Colonel Titus was the and actions of those who were nearest his 
 mace-bearer, and carried the fire-shovel on Majesty's trust with the highest malice aixl 
 his shoulder with such gravity and self- presumption, and too often suspended or 
 importance, that the courtiers called out, totally disappointed some resolutions which 
 •Like master like man." The name of the had been taken upon very mature delibera- 
 actor who played " purse-bearer '' is not re- tion." — Life, ii. 324. The ladies of the Coirfc 
 corded. The fame of this masque came round joined, by saying to the King as the Chit- 
 to the Chancellor. " For wit's sake they cellor appeared, " Here comes your school- 
 gometimes reflected upon somewhat he had master 1 " 
 said, or acted some of his postures and man- 
 
104 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXL 
 
 not rery consistent with discretion, had resolutely defended 
 the citadel of her virtue. His passion being inflamed by this 
 resistance, he contemplated offering her his hand in marriage, 
 after obtaining a divorce on some pretext from his present wife. 
 So serious was he that he consulted Archbishop Sheldon on 
 the subject, who, without giving him an answer, communicated 
 what had passed between them to the Chancellor. There 
 were evidently strong objections to the scheme, on the ground 
 of justice and expediency ; and these were greatly strengthened 
 in the mind of Clarendon by the consideration that it would 
 probably cut off the chance of his grandchildren succeeding 
 to the throne, which had fur some time been considered 
 certain. It is believed that he went straightway to ■ Miss 
 Stuart, and, by strong representations of what was for her 
 honour and advantage, induced her immediately to consent 
 to a clandestine marriage with the Duke of Richmond, who 
 had long been her suitor. Charles discovering the secret, 
 and, from an accidental meeting with Lord Cornbury, the 
 Chancellor's son, at Miss Stuart's lodgings, suspecting the 
 author of his disappointment, — expressed his indignation in 
 the most unmeasured terras." This being reported to the 
 Chancellor, he in a very undignified manner (which consider- 
 ably detracts from the merit of his boasted demeanour to the 
 royal mistresses) denied peremptorily, in the King's presence, 
 that he had any concern in Miss Stuart's marriage to the Duke 
 of Richmond ; and finding that the King still imputed to him 
 the failure of his hopes, condescended to repeat the denial in 
 writing. Charles still remained incredulous, and viewed the 
 Chancellor with more and more dislike. 
 
 While the political horizon was blackening on all sides 
 around the aged statesman, he suffered a severe domestic 
 affliction, which he thus records: " His wife, the mother of 
 all his children, and his companion in all his banishment/ and who 
 
 x The following is Ludlow's malicious ac- few days married her. The King heing thus 
 
 count of this affair w ritten in Switzerland: disappointed, and soon after informed hy what 
 
 " The Chancellor sent for the Duke of Rich- means this match had been brought about, 
 
 mond, and pretending to be sorry that a per- banished the Duke with his new Duchess 
 
 son of his worth should receive no marks of from the Court, and kept his resentment 
 
 his favour, advised him to marry Mrs. Stuart against the Chancellor to a more convenient 
 
 as the most certain way he could take to ad- opportunity.'' — Mem. 417. 
 
 vance himself. The young man unwarily y There is no reason to suppose that he was 
 
 took in the bait, and credulously relying on not a very good husband; but he is here 
 
 what the old Yolpone had said, made imrae- rhetorical in his grief, for his wife was hardly 
 
 diate application to the young lady, who was ever with him during his exile, although she 
 
 ignorant of the King's intentions, and in a pressed him to send for her. 
 
A.D. 1667. INTRIGUES AGAINST HIM. 105 
 
 had made all his former calamities less grievous by her com- 
 pany and courage, having made a journey to Timbridge for 
 her health, returned from thence without the benefit she 
 expected, yet without being thought by the physician to be 
 in any danger, and within less than three days died ; which 
 was so sudden, unexpected, and irreparable a loss, that he 
 had not courage to support ; which nobody wondered at who 
 knew the mutual satisfaction and comfort the} T had in each 
 other." 2 
 
 AVhile he secluded himself from publio business and from 
 society, his ruin was. consummated by the reconciliation of 
 the King to Buckingham, who had been for some time in 
 disgrace and skulking from a warrant of commitment to the 
 Tower. This was brought about by the mediation of Lady 
 Castlemaine, who succeeded by often calling Charles "fool," 
 and telling him " that if he was not a fool he would not suffer 
 his businesses to be carried on by fools that did not understand 
 them, and cause his best subjects and those best able to serve 
 him to be imprisoned." 
 
 As soon as Buckingham was restored to the Court, he was 
 impatient for the formation of the new administration, which 
 afterwards acquired such infamy under the name of the 
 Cabal ; and Lady Castlemaine and he would give the indolent 
 King no rest till he sent a message to the Chancellor through 
 the Duke of York, intimating that he had been secretly in- 
 formed that the parliament would certainl} r impeach him at 
 their next meeting, not only for his having opposed them in 
 all those things upon which they had set their hearts, but 
 because he had proposed and advised their dissolution, and 
 recommending that he should appease their wrath by an im- 
 mediate surrender of the Great Seal. 3 
 
 Clarendon expressed his regret that the King should have 
 no better opinion of his innocence and integrity than to con- 
 clude that he could not repel such an attack, and requested an 
 audience before returning any answer to his commands. 
 
 This request could not be refused, and the King appointed 
 him to come to him after breakfast on the 26th of August. 
 The approaching inteiview was known to all the courtiers, 
 and excited the liveliest interest among them, as each was 
 sanguine enough to hope some personal advantage from toe 
 expected change. 
 
 Clarendon being admitted to the royal presence, said ho 
 
 * Life, iii. 282. a Ibid. 
 
106 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXL 
 
 had no suit to make to his Majesty, nor the least thought of 
 diverting him from the resolution his Majesty had taken, but 
 he wished to receive his Majesty's determination from his 
 Majesty himself, and that he therefore came to know what 
 fault he had committed. The King disclaimed having any 
 thing to object to him, but professed that he had adopted this 
 resolution for his good and preservation, saying that taking 
 the Seal from him at this time would so well please the par- 
 liament, that he might thereby be preserved, and his Majesty 
 himself might in all other things have what he desired, — 
 adding, that the business was already so publicly spoken of 
 that he knew not how to change his purpose. — Clarendon, 
 " Your Majesty has the undoubted right to dispose of my 
 office as seemeth you best, and forthwith to deprive me of the 
 Seal ; but I, your Majesty's humble liege subject, have a right 
 to defend mine honour, and I will by no means suffer it to be 
 believed that I voluntarily give up the Seal, as confessing 
 wrong, nor, if I am deprived of it, will I acknowledge this 
 deprivation to be done in my favour, or in order to do me 
 good ; and so far am I from fearing the justice of the parlia- 
 ment, that I renounce your Majesty's protection or interpo- 
 sition towards my preservation." — King. " You have not 
 enough reflected on the power of the parliament, or their hos- 
 tility to you, however groundless that may be ; and my own 
 condition, after recent miscarriages, is such that I cannot dis- 
 pute with them, and am myself at their mercy." — Clarendon. 
 " Whatever resolution your Majesty may take in my par- 
 ticular, let me beseech you not to suffer your spirits to fall, 
 nor yourself to be dejected with the apprehension of the 
 formidable power of the parliament, which is more, or less, or 
 nothing, as you please to make it. It is yet in your power 
 to govern them ; but if they find it in theirs to govern you, 
 nobody knows what the end will be." He then made a short 
 relation of the manner in which Eichard II. had been bullied 
 by his parliament, and how his misfortunes might have been 
 prevented. 
 
 All this Charles took in tolerably good part ; but when 
 Clarendon began to warn him more directly against the bad 
 advice of those by whom he was surrounded, and pointedly 
 to allude to the Countess of Castlemaine, anger and impa- 
 tience were visibly depicted on the royal visage. The noble 
 historian's narrative admits that, in the course of the conver- 
 sation, " he mentioned the lady with some reflections and cau- 
 
A.D. 1667. HIS DISMISSAL. 107 
 
 tions, which he might more advisedly have declined." After 
 two hours' discourse the King rose and retired without an- 
 nouncing any resolution on the subject. The Duke of York, 
 who was the only third party present, expressed a fear that 
 " he was offended with the last part of it." b 
 
 Such curiosity was excited among the courtiers and mis- 
 tresses by this conference, that they were eager to guess at 
 the result of it by watching the countenances of the King 
 and the Chancellor when it was over ; but they could only 
 discover that "both looked very thoughtful." c Great alarm 
 prevailed among them when some days passed over without a 
 resignation or dismissal. Sir William Coventry and Arling- 
 ton saw that they could not place reliance on the unsteady 
 and careless temper of the King, particularly as it was un- 
 derstood that the Duke of York had been attempting to soften 
 his father-in-law's harsh expressions at the late interview, 
 and to restore him to favour. They therefore strongly repre- 
 sented to Charles that he had proceeded too far to retire, 
 and that he would be looked upon as a child if he should 
 now hesitate ; they taunted him with his subserviency to 
 the Chancellor, and the awe in which he stood of him ; they 
 represented the Chancellor as a cunning old lawyer, who 
 only sought his own ends, and who, to add to his own con- 
 sequence, had kept the Crown dependent on the parliament 
 by refusing the offer of a great permanent revenue. Not 
 yet sure of having inspired the King with necessary cou- 
 rage and energy, they again set Lp.dy Castlemaine upon him, 
 " who nearly hectored him out of his wits." She, strange to 
 say, asked him if this was his return for her complaisance in 
 trying to further his suit with " la belle Stuart ? " d At this 
 name Charles instantly asked forgiveness of her upon his 
 knees for his delay, and sent Morrice, the Secretary of State, 
 with a warrant under the sign-manual to require and receive 
 the Great Seal from the present holder of it. Clarendon was 
 employing it in sealing the formal proclamation of the Peace 
 
 b Life of Clar. iii. 286. man's going away ; and several of the gallants 
 
 c Pepys gives a particularly lively descrip- of Whitehall (of which there were many stay- 
 
 tion of the demeanour of Lady Castlemaine ing to see the Chancellor's return) did talk to 
 
 as the Chancellor was leaving Whitehall, her in her birdcage ; among others, Blancford, 
 
 " When he went from the King on Monday telling her she was a bird of passage."— 
 
 morning she was in bed (though about twelve Pepys, iii. 334. 
 
 o'clock), and ran out in her smock into her d .At his request she had frequently in- 
 
 aviary looking into Whitehall Garden ; and vited Miss Stuart to her parties, and left 
 
 thither her woman brought her her night- ttiem alone together, 
 gown, and stood blessing herself at the old 
 
108 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXX11. 
 
 of Breda, and as soon as this ceremony was finished, he deli- 
 vered it up with an expression of submission to the royal will, 
 and of satisfaction that his last official act was to restore har- 
 mony between two nations who ought to be united. Morrice 
 returned with the Seal to Whitehall, and put it into the King's 
 hands while he still remained in Lady Castlemaine's apart- 
 ments, surrounded by Clarendon's enemies, — when May, one 
 of the basest of them, embracing his Majesty's knees, ex- 
 claimed, " Sir, you are now a King ! " e 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXII. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS 
 
 BANISHMENT. 
 
 Clarendon bore his reverse of fortune with firmness. He put 
 some faith in the representation that after the loss of 
 his office no farther steps would be taken against 
 him ; but he was prepared resolutely to defend himself should 
 he be assailed on the meeting of parliament/ As yet he had 
 no suspicion that the King would sanction any attempt to 
 destroy him, or to offer him farther molestation. Charles at 
 first imputed the act of dismissing him entirely to his bad 
 temper. "The truth is," said his Majesty in a letter to 
 Ormond, " his behaviour and humour was grown so insupport- 
 able to myself and all the world else, that I could no longer 
 endure it, and it was impossible for me to bear with it and 
 those things with the parliament that must be done, or the 
 government will be lost." g Being asked by some holding 
 offices under the government, " whether their visiting him, to 
 whom they had been formerly much beholden, would offend 
 his Majesty," he answered, No, he had not forbid any man to visit 
 him. 
 
 e Life, iii. 294. Pepys, iii. 321, 335, 338, bouse till it should meet (without going 
 
 407 thither, which he was informed would be ill 
 
 f "The Chancellor believed that the storm taken), that he might not be thought to be 
 
 had been now over ; for he had not the least afraid of being questioned, and then to retire 
 
 apprehension of the displeasure of the par- into the country and live there very pri- 
 
 liament, or of any thing they could say or do vately." — Life, iii. 835. 
 
 against him ; yet he resolved to stay at his S Ellis's Original Letters, iv. 30. 
 
A:D. 1667. HIS IMPEACHMENT. 109 
 
 The Ex-Chancellor himself gives rather a satisfactory ac- 
 count of the behaviour of the world to him immediately after 
 his dismissal. "Many persons of honour and quality came 
 every day to visit him, with many expressions of affection and 
 esteem, and most of the King's servants, except only those 
 few who had declared themselves his enemies." h Evelyn at 
 this time makes a less favourable entry in his Journal : — " I 
 dined with my late Lord Chancellor, where also dined Mr. 
 Ashburahani and Mr. W. Legge of the bed-chamber ; his 
 Lordship pretty well in heart, though many of his friends 
 and sycophants abandoned him. But there were great ap- 
 prehensions at Court that if he were spared, the stonn having 
 blown over, his influence might revive, and that, being re- 
 stored to power, he might take ample vengeance on his 
 enemies." The King's confidence was now enjoyed by the 
 members who afterwards formed the Cabal, and who, en- 
 tertaining the most criminal designs, were resolved to ruin 
 him of whom it had been said in the hearing of some of them, 
 — " He is a true Protestant and an honest Englishman, and 
 while he enjoys power we are secure of our laws, liberties, 
 and religion." ' 
 
 The King, on this occasion, for the first time, gave clear 
 proof of that thorough want of heart and principle which 
 appeared more and more distinctly, and which, notwithstand- 
 ing his outward good qualities, ultimately rendered his reign 
 inglorious, and his memory contemptible. He zealously 
 joined in the persecution of Clarendon, who, from boyhood, 
 had been his adviser, companion, and friend, and against 
 whom he could urge nothing except " defect of temper." 
 Notwithstanding the first professions of good-will, an intima- 
 tion was soon given " that the King would take it ill from all 
 his servants who visited the late Chancellor, and it appeared 
 more every day that they were best looked on who forbore 
 going to him." k 
 
 But he was not to escape with the mere punishment of 
 being frowned on by the Sovereign and deserted by all who 
 aspired to promotion at Court. A parliamentary impeach- 
 ment was resolved on, — not to bring him to the scaffold, but 
 to drive him for ever from his native country ; — and although 
 it was well known that nothing could be proved against him 
 amounting to high treason, or any serious crime, entire 
 
 h Life of Oar. iii. 295. 
 i By Lord Southampton in council, shortly before his death. k Life, iii. 295. 
 
110 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXII. 
 
 reliance was placed on the prejudices of the parliament and of 
 the nation. 
 
 The fall of Clarendon was certainly hailed with almost 
 Universal satisfaction, and farther joy was expressed when the 
 plan was announced of bringing him to justice for his supposed 
 delinquencies. 
 
 On the 10th of October parliament re-assembled, and the 
 King alluded to the dismissal of Clarendon in these words, 
 which constituted the whole of his speech : — " When we last 
 met here, about eleven weeks ago, I thought fit to prorogue 
 the parliament to this day, resolving that there should be 
 a session now, and to give myself time to do some things I 
 have since done, which I hope will not be unwelcome to you, 
 but a foundation for a greater confidence between us for the 
 future." 
 
 It had been hitherto the custom merely by a general vote to 
 thank his Majesty for his gracious speech, without an address 
 according to modem fashion, re-echoing all the sentiments of 
 the speech, and specifically concurring in them. But on this 
 occasion, as a preliminary to farther proceedings against the 
 Ex-Chancellor, there was a joint address of both Houses, 
 thanking his Majesty for the recent measures of his govern- 
 ment, and thus concluding: — "We are grateful for your 
 Majesty's care in quickening the execution of the Act against 
 the importation of foreign [Irish] cattle, and more especially 
 that your Majesty hath been pleased to displace the late Lord 
 Chancellor, and remove him from the exercise of public trust 
 and employment in the affairs of state." m 
 
 The King made the following answer, dictated by Buck- 
 ingham : — " I thank you for your thanks. I am glad the 
 things I have done have given you so good satisfaction ; and 
 for the Earl of Clarendon, I assure you I will never employ 
 him again in any public affairs whatsoever." 
 
 The motion for impeachment was made in the House of 
 Commons by Sir Edward Seymour, a man able, ambitious, 
 and "supposed to decline no means that tended to his ad- 
 vancement." Ko orator ever addressed a more favourable 
 audience, and ho fully availed himself of his advantage by 
 
 111 " Tbe Lords at first objected to this ad- bench to concur in it, and if they should re- 
 dress, but the King said ' it should go worse fuse it he would make them repent it." — 
 for the Chancellor ' if his friends in the Lords Life of Clar. iii. 303. This may be con- 
 opposed it; and he sent a message to the sidered the commencement of the constitur 
 Archbishop of Canterbury that he should, in ti&tial career of the Cabal. 
 hid Majesty's name, command all the Bishops' 
 
A.1). 1667. FUTILITY OF THE CHARGES. Ill 
 
 bringing forward charges in vague and declamatory language 
 to suit the passions of every section of the House ; but the in- 
 dignation excited by the sale of Dunkirk, by the alleged plan 
 of keeping up a standing army, and by the disgrace at the 
 conclusion of the Dutch war, was nothing compared to the 
 fury which burst forth when he came to " the importation of 
 Irish cattle," and the crowning accusation—" that the Earl of 
 Clarendon, in dissuading the assembling of parliament on an 
 earlier day than that to which it had been, prorogued, although 
 an invasion of the realm was threatened by a foreign foe, had 
 audaciously and treasonably spoken these scandalous and 
 abominable words of and concerning the representatives of 
 the people in the Commons' House of Parliament — Four hun- 
 dred country gentlemen are only fit to give money, and do not under- 
 stand how an invasion is to be resisted ! " n 
 
 Sheridan's famous speech in the House of Commons against 
 Warren Hastings was not more successful ; and the only 
 question was, how the prosecution should be conducted ? At 
 last " a committee was appointed to look into ancient pre- 
 cedents of the method of the proceedings of this House in 
 cases of impeachment for capital offences," which was followed 
 by a committee "to reduce into heads the accusations against 
 the Earl of Clarendon." 
 
 This committee, consisting of his bitterest enemies, in their 
 report proposed seventeen articles of impeachment most pre- 
 posterously vague and absurd. I can only give the first as a 
 specimen. "1. That the Earl of Clarendon hath designed a 
 standing anny to be raised and to govern the kingdom, 
 thereby advised the King to dissolve this present parliament, 
 to lay aside all thoughts of parliament for the future, to govern 
 by a military power, and to maintain the same b} r free quarters 
 and contribution." By the others he was charged with 
 having said that the King was a papist in his heart, or popisMy 
 affected, or words to that effect, — with receiving money for passing 
 illegal patents — with causing divers persons to be illegally 
 imprisoned, and sent to remote islands and garrisons, — with 
 
 n North's Lives, ii. 51. discharged from illegal imprisonment, and 
 ° This was tbe best founded charge. As there is reason to apprehend that a portion of 
 yet little regard was paid to personal liberty ; these sometimes found their way to the Lord 
 there were arbitrary commitments by the Chancellor."— See Pepys, hi. 220, 221, 2S5. 
 Council and the Secretary of State, and writs Lister's Life of Ld. Cl. ii. 500. Men's minds 
 of habeas corpus were disregarded. The long were not yet accustomed to regular and con- 
 imprisonment of Colonel Hutchinson, which stitutional government, and in this transition 
 caused his death, may be taken as an example, state very arbitrary proceedings occasionally 
 Large sums were given occasionally to be took place without much notice. 
 
112 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXII. 
 
 procuring his Majesty to pay debts for which he was not 
 liable, — with receiving money from the Vintners' Company 
 for enhancing the price of wines, — with gaining a great estate 
 more rapidly than was possible by lawful means, — with in- 
 troducing arbitrary government into the plantations, — with 
 advising and effecting the sale of Dunkirk, together with the 
 artillery and stores, and for no greater value than the artillery 
 and stores were worth, — with arbitrary proceedings at the 
 council table, — with illegally causing writs of quo warranto to 
 issue, — and with betraying his Majesty in negotiations re- 
 lating to the late war. 
 
 But some of the country gentlemen who had such a horror 
 of Clarendon for his defence of the importation of Irish cattle 
 and provisions, seeing that this was not made a substan- 
 tive charge, doubted whether any of those brought forward 
 amounted to high treason, and an opinion was expressed that 
 the prosecution should only be for " high crimes and misde- 
 meanours," — so as not to affect his life. 
 
 The motion that he should be impeached for high treason 
 on the first charge was nevertheless persisted in, and, won- 
 derful to relate, after a two days' debate it was negatived by 
 172 to 103. The others taken seriatim had the same fate, till 
 that one was reached which charged him with betraying his 
 Majesty in negotiations, — when Lord Vaughan, eldest son of 
 the Earl of Carberiy, moved the addition of these words, 
 " and discovered and betrayed his secret counsels to the 
 enemy," — asserting that he was credibly informed that this 
 could be made out by a person of honour, whose name he for 
 the present had good reasons for concealing. The words were in- 
 serted, and the motion that the Earl of Clarendon on this charge 
 be impeached for high treason was carried by 161 to 89. 
 
 Still they were ashamed to exhibit these articles specifically 
 at the bar of the House of Lords, and Seymour, going up there, 
 preferred the impeachment in the following general words : 
 " The Commons assembled in parliament having received in- 
 formation of divers traitorous practices and designs of a great 
 Peer of this House, Edward Earl of Clarendon, have com- 
 manded me to impeach the said Earl of treason and other 
 high crimes and misdemeanours, and I do here, in their 
 names and in the names of all the Commons of England, 
 impeach Edward Earl of Clarendon of treason and other 
 high crimes and misdemeanours. I am further commanded 
 by the House of Commons to desire your Lordships that the 
 
A.D. 1667. CONFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES. 113 
 
 Earl of Clarendon may be sequestered to safe custody. They 
 further commanded me to acquaint your Lordships that they 
 will, within a convenient time, exhibit to your Lordships the 
 articles of charge against him." p 
 
 This is one of the many occasions in our constitutional 
 history when the Lords, with all their faults, have shown much 
 more regard to the principles of justice and liberty, than the 
 inflamed and prejudiced elected representatives of the people. 
 After four days' debate it was resolved, "that the House 
 would not comply with the desire of the House of Commons 
 concerning the commitment of the Earl of Clarendon and se- 
 questering him from Parliament, because the House of Commons 
 have only accused him of treason in general, and have not assigned or 
 specified any particular treason.^ 
 
 This resolution being communicated to the Commons, a 
 conference took place between the two Houses in the Painted 
 Chamber, when the Commons insisted on their right to de- 
 mand the commitment of a Peer on a general impeachment 
 'for treason, citing the recent cases of the Earl of Strafford, 
 Archbishop Laud, and Lord Keeper Finch, and greatly 
 praising the gravity and wisdom of the early proceedings of 
 the Long Parliament. The Lords answered, that these pre- 
 cedents had occurred in times of great heat and violence ; 
 that if they ought always to commit upon impeachment by 
 the Commons, they were rather executors of process than 
 Judges; that, excellent as was the composition of the present House 
 of Commons, there might be a House of Commons inclined to 
 faction, who, by the abuse of the power now claimed, might 
 make dangerous inroads upon the justice and ancient govern- 
 ment of the kingdom, terrify and invade the highest jurisdic- 
 tion, and indeed bring the House of Lords to as small a num- 
 ber as they please to leave unaccused ; that as all inferior 
 courts and magistrates were bound to examine upon oath the 
 particular crimes where with a man is charged before depriving 
 ldm of his freedom, the parliament should be careful herein 
 to give a good example ; and that the Petition of Eight having 
 declared that no man ought to be imprisoned or detained 
 without being first charged with something to which he might 
 make answer according to law, it would be a plain infraction 
 of that rule to commit upon generals, which do not allow 
 answer or defence. 
 
 Each House adhered to its resolution, — even after another 
 
 P 4 ParL Hist 586. 
 VOL. I?. I 
 
114: LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap.LXXXII. 
 
 conference, which was " free," and in which the question was 
 debated wamily between the managers. 
 
 The Commons then resolved, "that the Lords not having 
 complied with the desires of the Commons for the commitment 
 of the Earl of Clarendon, and sequestering him from parlia- 
 ment upon the impeachment of this House, is an obstruction to 
 the public justice of the kingdom, and a precedent of evil and 
 dangerous consequences." q 
 
 This was the most direct and seemingly the most dangerous 
 collision which had ever taken place between the two Houses. 
 " It is much to be feared," wrote an intelligent observer, " all 
 future intercourse between them will stop. The consequence 
 none can foresee. A worse position of affairs this govern- 
 ment does not admit, his Majesty wanting a considerable sum 
 for the payment of the navy and other debts ; the people full of 
 complaint for their late miscarriages ; our neighbours arming, 
 and we exposed to all kinds of hazards from abroad and at 
 home." 
 
 What was to be done ? A new creation of Peers to carry ■ 
 a ministerial measure, was a coup d'etat which had not then 
 been thought of, and if a dissolution had taken place, the public 
 mind was in such an inflamed state that, notwithstanding the 
 unanswerable reasoning of the Lords, the commitment on a 
 general accusation would have been demanded by a new and 
 more violent House of Commons. 
 
 It was suggested by the courtiers that Clarendon might 
 extricate all parties from this dilemma by withdrawing beyond 
 the seas ; but he scorned the proposal. Some of his own 
 friends, thinking that it would be the wisest course for him- 
 self, represented to him the danger in which he was, and 
 spread reports to reach him that the Duke of Albemarle, his 
 old enemy, was now plotting against him ; that he was to be 
 arrested in his house by a guard of soldiers, and carried to the 
 Tower ; that directions had been given to the Lieutenant 
 of the Tower to treat him with severity ; and that the in- 
 tention was to keep him always in prison without bringing him 
 to trial. Still he remained firm, urging that his flight would 
 be interpreted as a confession of guilt, — would be a triumph 
 to his enemies, — and would bring lasting disgrace upon himself. 
 
 Being told that his withdrawing would be grateful to the 
 King, he took a step the real motives for which it is very 
 difficult to fathom. Perhaps he expected that Charles would 
 
 1 4 Pari. Hist 388—390. 
 
A.D. 1667. THE KING'S ADVICE THAT HE SHOULD FLY. 115 
 
 disclaim any such wish, or might be melted by a persona 
 appeal to him ; though still it is impossible to account for hi w 
 topics and his tone. He wrote a letter to the King, in which, 
 imputing his Majesty's displeasure to his having brought 
 about the marriage between the Duke of Richmond and " la 
 belle Stuart," he again denied all previous knowledge of it. 
 He expressed his earnest desire, at all times, to act according 
 to his Majesty's wishes, and to regain his favour, and thus 
 concluded: — "I do most humbly beseech your Majesty, 
 by 1he memory of your father, who recommended me to 
 you with some testimony, and by your own reflection upon 
 some one service I may have performed in my life that hath 
 been acceptable to you, that jou will, by your royal power 
 and interposition, put a stop to this severe prosecution against 
 me ; and that my concernment may give no longer interrup- 
 tion to the great affairs of the kingdom ; but that I may spend 
 the small remainder of my life, which cannot hold long, in 
 some part beyond the seas, never to return." 
 
 This letter was put into the King's own hand by Bridg- 
 man, the new Lord Keeper. As soon as Charles had perused 
 it, he burned it in the flame of a candle, merely saying, with 
 an air of non-chalance, "There is something here which I do 
 not understand ; but I wonder Lord Clarendon doth not with- 
 draw himself." If anything could palliate the King's aban- 
 donment or persecution of his old friend, it would be this 
 letter, in which the writer directly imputes such a base motive 
 (though it might be the true one) for the royal displeasure, 
 and pretty plainly intimates that he himself should have been 
 pleased to aid his Majesty's designs on Miss Stuart, whatever 
 they might have been. 
 
 The laconic and insulting response, reported to Clarendon 
 by the Lord Keeper, rather induced him to remain in England 
 at all hazards. The next move was a visit to him from the 
 Bishop of Hereford, who intimated, that if he would quit the 
 kingdom, to prevent the mischief which must arise from the 
 difference between the two Houses, — the Bishop would under- 
 take, "upon his salvation," that he should not be interrupted 
 in his journey, nor be afterwards prosecuted, or suffer during 
 his absence in honour or in fortune. Clarendon demanded 
 written evidence of the King's wishes, and a pass signed by 
 the King, lest his enemies should arrest him as a fugitive 
 from justice. The Bishop sent him word that the pass could 
 Hot be granted, from the apprehension of giving displeasure 
 
 12 
 
116 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIL 
 
 to the parliament, but that he might as securely go as if he 
 had it. Kuvigni, the French ambassador, to induce him 
 to fly, assured him of kind treatment in France. But while he 
 could reckon on a friendly majority in the House of Lords he 
 considered himself safe, and was resolved to remain at his post. 
 He became alarmed by being told that, for the purpose of 
 convicting him capitally, parliament was to be prorogued, and 
 that an indictment for treason would then be found against 
 him by a grand jury, upon which he would be tried before the 
 Lord High Steward and a small number of Peers, selected by 
 the Government from among his enemies. This turned out 
 to be no idle rumour. A positive resolution had been taken 
 to force him to fly, or to proceed to extremities against 
 him. The King, at some risk of infection, went to the Duke 
 of York, who had been confined by the smallpox, and told 
 him to advise his father-in-law to be gone, — blaming him for 
 not giving credit to what had been said to him by the Bishop 
 of Hereford. The Duke immediately sent a message to Claren- 
 don, by the Bishop of Winchester, " that it was absolutely ne- 
 cessary for him to be gone, and that he had the King's word for 
 all that had been undertaken by the Bishop of Hereford." 
 
 The Duke having continued always to behave to him with 
 kindness and sincerity, he thought there was no longer room 
 for hesitation, and he resolved to set off for France that very 
 night. His friend, Sir John Wolstenholme, agreed to have 
 a boat ready to receive him at Erith. As soon as it was 
 dark the Ex-Chancellor got into his coach at Clarendon House 
 with two servants, and, guarded by his two sons and two or 
 three friends on horseback, he passed rapidly, by Temple 
 Bar, through the city, crossed London Bridge, and proceeded 
 along the right bank of the river to his place ol embarkation. 
 At eleven o'clock in the night of Saturday, the 29th of No- 
 vember, 1667, he hurried on board the boat which was 
 waiting for him at Erith, and bid a last adieu to his native 
 country. Evelyn gives us a very interesting account of a visit 
 he had paid him in the morning of the same day, before his 
 communication from the Duke of York : "I found him in 
 his garden at his new-built palace, sitting in his gout 
 wheele chayre, and seeing the gates setting up towards 
 the north and the fields. He looked and spoke very dis- 
 consolately. After some while deploring his condition to 
 me, I took my leave. Next morning I heard he was gone. I 
 am persuaded," adds Evelyn, " that had he gon sooner, though 
 
A.D. 1667. IMPOLICY OF HIS FLIGHT. 117 
 
 but to Combmy, and there lain quiet, it would have satisfied 
 the parliament. That which exasperated them was his pre- 
 suming to stay and contest the accusation so long as it was 
 possible ; and they were on the point of sending him to the 
 Tower." r 
 
 ' I must express my surprise, that he did not persist in his 
 resolution still to remain and face the accusation. He owed 
 no sacrifice to the King for the purpose of extricating the 
 government from the embarrassment in which they were 
 placed by this scandalous prosecution ; he had a reasonable 
 safeguard from violence in the firmness of the House of 
 Lords ; and he might have braved the threat of sending him 
 to the Tower, and bringing him to trial before a packed 
 tribunal. 
 
 Although he does not expressly mention that he was in- 
 fluenced by the wishes of his children, I cannot help believing 
 that the Duchess of York joined with her husband in advising 
 him to withdraw ; and that his sons, who had gallantly de- 
 fended him in the House of Commons, in their pious fears ex- 
 aggerated to him the danger arising from the blind fury of that 
 assembly. 
 
 He probably hoped, ere long, safely to return ; and, at all 
 events, he confidently relied upon the royal pledge so 
 solemnly given that no farther steps would be taken against 
 him while he was in exile. 
 
 His flight was greatly condemned at the time; and " made 
 a greater impression upon many worthy persons, to his disad- 
 vantage, than any particular that was contained in the charge 
 that had been offered to the House." 8 
 
 He left behind him. a letter, addressed to the Lords, which 
 was delivered by Lord Cornbury to the Earl of Denbigh ; and 
 by him presented to the House. This contained a vindication 
 of his conduct. To the charge of having suddenly accumu- 
 lated great wealth, which weighed most with the public, he 
 said he never received from his office more than its just emolu- 
 ments, as sanctioned by Lords Ellesmere and Coventry, who 
 had escaped all reproach ; that he had received from the King 
 presents, in all amounting to 26,000?., and some small grants 
 of land, having refused to accept much greater ; that his whole 
 estate, after payment of his debts, would not amount to 2000?. 
 a year ; and that, instead of having a large hoard of ready 
 money by him, — since the time the Seals were taken from him 
 
 r Evelyn, ii. 299 * Life, iii. 300. 
 
118 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIL, 
 
 he had lived upon the produce of his plate. With respect to 
 the management of public affairs, he answered, that after the 
 parliament at Oxford, his credit had greatly declined; that 
 since the introduction of Arlington into the Council, he had 
 been little attended to ; that it was notorious he had opposed 
 the Dutch war ; and that he had not, during the whole of the 
 last year, been above twice alone with the King, who had pre- 
 ferred other advisers. He solemnly denied that he had ever, 
 " upon all the treaties or -otherwise, received the value of Is. 
 from all the Kings and Princes in the world, except the books 
 of the Louvre prints, sent him by the Chancellor of France." 
 Ho accounts for his present position from having made 
 enemies in the faithful discharge of his public duties, and 
 thus concludes: "I most humbly beseech your Lordships, 
 that I may not forfeit your Lordships' favour and protection 
 by withdrawing myself from so powerful a prosecution, in 
 hopes I may be able, by such withdrawing, hereafter to appear 
 and make my defence ; when his Majesty's justice, to which 
 I shall always submit, may not be obstructed nor controlled 
 by the power and malice of those who have sworn my de- 
 struction." ' 
 
 Arlington, who was here so distinctly pointed out as the 
 author of the late pernicious measures, spoke vehemently 
 against this letter, denouncing it as " a libel," and asserting 
 that "there was not one word of truth in it." Buckingham, 
 at whom it distinctly glanced, moved that it should be com- 
 municated to the Commons as "a scandalous and seditious 
 paper," and, himself being appointed to be the messenger, at 
 a conference between the two Houses he performed the task 
 in his usual strain of insult and ridicule : " The Lords have 
 commanded me to deliver to you this scandalous and seditious 
 paper sent from the Earl of Clarendon : they bid me to present 
 it to you, and desire you in convenient time to send it to them 
 again ; for it is a style which they are in love with, and therefore 
 desire to keep it" — mimicking the tones and gestures of the Ex- 
 Chancellor. 
 
 The Commons resolved that it should be burnt by the 
 hands of the common hangman, and sent up this resolution to 
 the Lords, who so far forgot their dignity as to concur in it. 
 This pitiful mode of showing spite against writings which 
 perhaps could not be refuted, continued in fashion for a cen- 
 tury afterwards. 
 
 t Life, iii. 346. 
 
A.D. 1667. BILL FOR HIS BANISHMENT. lltf 
 
 By way of preparation for the solemnity on this occasion, 
 the address was printed and cried through the streets, with 
 this opprobrious title: "News from Dunkirk House, or Claren- 
 don's Farewell to England ; in his seditious Address to the 
 Rio-ht Honourable the House of Peers, on the 3rd of Dec. 
 1667." The burning took place in Palace Yard in the pre- 
 sence of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, amidst tre- 
 mendous shouts of applause from the populace. 
 
 The Commons added a resolution on their own sole authority 
 as to the obligation of the Lords to commit on a general im- 
 peachment for treason, — with this qualification, that "the 
 Lords may limit a convenient time for bringing the particular 
 charge before them." But this struggle put an end to general 
 impeachments, — and ever since, upon an impeachment voted 
 by the Commons before a demand of commitment, the different 
 charges, articulately framed, have been delivered in writing at 
 the bar of the House of Lords. 
 
 According to the agreement which was to be observed "on 
 the salvation of the Bishop of Hereford," — Clarendon having 
 withdrawn beyond the seas, was not to suffer farther in his 
 honour or his estate. But unfortunately for the devoted Pre- 
 late, the enemies of the Ex-Chancellor, with the full concur- 
 rence of the King, immediately introduced a bill in the House 
 of Lords, which, under pretence that he had voluntarily fled 
 from justice, enacted, " that unless he returned and surren- 
 dered himself before the 1st of February next, he was to be 
 banished for life, disabled from ever again holding any office, 
 subjected if he afterwards returned to England to the penalties 
 of high treason, and rendered incapable of pardon without the 
 consent of the two Houses of Parliament." An amendment to 
 extend the day for his appearance to the 10th of February was 
 negatived, and the bill was carried by a considerable majority, 
 all the influence of the Government being exerted to support 
 .it. A strong protest against it was signed by several Peers, on 
 the grounds that it was unjust to punish a man for with- 
 drawing, against whom no legal charge had been brought, and 
 for whose appearance there had been no regular process or 
 order ; that the day mentioned in the bill was so near at hand, 
 that he had no fair opportunity of surrendering and taking 
 his trial ; and that the bill encroached on the royal preroga- 
 tive by depriving the King of the power to pardon. 
 
 When it came down to the Commons, the objection chiefly 
 made to it was that it was too mild, — and it was carried only 
 
120 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIII. 
 
 by a majority of 65 to 42, — tlie minority consisting mostly of 
 men who thought that .the impeachment for high treason ought 
 not to be stopped, and if there was to be legislation, it should 
 be by a present and absolute attainder. 
 
 Charles supported the bill in all its stages, — the only symp- 
 tom of shame which he displayed in the breach of all his 
 duties and engagements being, that he gave the royal assent 
 to it by commission, and not in person. 
 
 The name of the Ex-Chancellor was immediately erased from 
 the list of the Privy Council and from every public commission 
 in which it appeared." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIII. 
 
 [CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON 
 
 The victim of these arbitrary proceedings was now in France, 
 Dec 166? experiencing by turns kind and harsh treatment, as 
 Louis XIV. was guided by his own inclination to 
 ostentatious generosity, or by the apprehension of giving 
 offence to the King of England. Although the Ex-Chancellor 
 had set sail from Erith with a favourable wind, he was soon 
 driven back by a tempest, and it was only after beating 
 about in the mouth of the river Thames and in the English 
 Channel, three days and nights that he reached Calais. From 
 thence he applied to the French Government for permission to 
 reside at Eouen. Louis wrote him a letter with his own 
 hand, acceding to his request, and informing him that orders 
 were issued to the Governors of Calais, Boulogne, and Mont- 
 reuil, to treat him as a person whom their King esteemed, and 
 to afford him a sufficient escort ; that a coach should meet him' 
 at Abbeville to conduct him to Rouen, and that there every 
 thing should be done to render his residence safe and agreeable. 
 He accordingly proceeded on his journey, and was received 
 with great distinction as he passed through Artois and Picardy. 
 At Montreuil, the Due d'Elbceuf, the governor, lent him his 
 own carriage and horses as far as Abbeville. There he found 
 the equipage promised by Louis, which was to convey him 
 
 u Life, iii. 9to 
 
A.D. 1667. ORDERED TO QUIT FRANCE. 121 
 
 to Eouen. He preferred the route by the sea-shore, that he 
 might revisit some of the scenes of his former exile, and he 
 spent a few days very pleasantly at Dieppe. His spirits now 
 rallied, and he almost became reconciled to his fate, thinking 
 of the repose he was about to enjoy under the protection and 
 patronage of the Grand Monarque. But proceeding on his 
 journey, — when about half-way between Dieppe and Eouen, a 
 gentleman attended by two servants rode up to his carriage 
 window, and delivered a letter to him from Louis, merely de- 
 siring him to give credit to whatever the bearer of it should 
 communicate, and to obey his orders. This was M. Le Fonde, 
 who held a considerable office at Court, and who then with 
 much formality declared, in the name of the King his Master, 
 that " inasmuch as any favour shown in France to the banished 
 Conte de Clarendon would give offence to his ally the King ot 
 England, and might cause a breach between the two Crowns, 
 his most Christian Majesty must desire the said Conte de Cla- 
 rendon to quit his dominions immediately ; but, that Mons. le 
 Conte might want no accommodation for his journey to the 
 frontier, he, the bearer of this message, was commanded to do 
 himself the honour of accompanying him thither." So Claren- 
 don found himself a prisoner in the custody of M. Le Fonde. 
 He asked and obtained permission to proceed to Eouen. \\ he- 
 ther by accident or design, the coach which conveyed him was 
 three times overturned before reaching that place, and he was 
 very seriously bruised. He arrived at Eouen late at night, ex- 
 ceedingly ill. Next day he was quite unable to move, and a 
 courier was sent off to Paris to mention his condition to the 
 French Government, and to ask for fresh instructions. The 
 former harsh command was reiterated, that he should imme- 
 diately quit the French territory. " The fatigues of the 
 journey, and the bruises he had received from the falls and 
 overturnings of the coach, made him not able to rise out of his 
 bed, and the physicians who had taken much blood from him 
 exceedingly dissuaded it." x M. Le Fonde still urging his de- 
 parture, he dictated a letter to the French minister, intimating 
 his submission to the orders laid upon him ; that he had 
 selected Avignon, under the rule of his Holiness the Pope, for 
 his place of residence ; and that he would proceed to it with 
 all possible expedition, — but requesting that he might remain 
 a short time longer at Eouen, waiting his recoveiy, and that, 
 on account of the state of his health, he might be permitted to 
 
 x Life, Mi. 355. 
 
122 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIII 
 
 stop occasionally on his journey to recruit his strength, and 
 
 Jan 1668 particularly a few days at Orleans. The reply was, 
 
 that he must immediately set off for his destination, 
 
 and that in travelling to Avignon he would only be permitted 
 
 to stop every tenth day. 
 
 A few hours after, he received letters from his sons inform- 
 ing him of the steps which had been taken against him in his 
 absence, and containing a copy of the Act by which he was 
 to be banished for life, and branded as a traitor, unless he 
 surrendered himself by the 1st of February. There was just 
 time for him, by expeditious travelling, to be in London by 
 that day. Instead of proceeding to Avignon, he resolved to 
 face his enemies, and not to submit to the cruel sentence 
 which, in violation of the royal pledge, had been conditionally 
 pronounced upon him. Ill as he was, he immediately set off 
 for Calais, — which he was allowed to do on his representation 
 that he should from thence quit France, in obedience to the 
 royal mandate. But when he arrived there, after a fatiguing 
 journey in the depth of winter, he was so much worse that 
 his life was considered in danger, and bleeding was deemed 
 necessary to allay his fever. The weather was tempestuous, 
 and he could not embark. While he thus lay on a bed of 
 sickness, a peremptory order arrived from the French Go- 
 vernment, that under no circumstances should Lord Clarendon 
 be allowed to remain a day longer at Calais. " The King 
 your Master," said he to the messenger, " is a very great and 
 powerful Prince, but he is not so omnipotent as to make a 
 dying man undertake a journey. I am at your King's mercy, 
 and must endure whatever it is his pleasure to inflict. He 
 may send me a prisoner to England, or cause me to be carried 
 dead or alive into the Spanish territories, but I will not com- 
 mit suicide by voluntarily attempting what it is impossible for 
 me to perform." He requested the Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Calais, and the President of the Court of Justice, with whom 
 he had formerly been acquainted, to visit him, and they seeing 
 his deplorable condition, and fortified by a certificate from the 
 physicians who attended him, that he could not be removed 
 without danger to his life, made a representation which obtained 
 a permission for him to remain at Calais till he should recover 
 from his illness. 
 
 This concession was probably facilitated by rumours of the 
 " Triple Alliance " which had just been concluded by Sir 
 William Temple and De Witt, for curbing the ambition of the 
 
A.D. 1668. PERIL FROM ENGLISH SAILORS AT EVREUX. 123 
 
 French King, now beginning to alarm Europe. When the 
 certain news of this treaty was received, the French minister 
 sent a despatch to Clarendon assuring him " that he had the 
 same respect for him which he had always professed to have 
 in his greatest fortune*; that it was never the purpose of his 
 Christian Majesty to endanger his health by making a journey 
 that he could not well bear ; and therefore that it was left en- 
 tirely to himself to remove from Calais when he thought fit, 
 and to go to what place he would." 
 
 The day for his surrender was gone by ; he was now a 
 banished man for life, and he could not set foot on English 
 ground without being liable to be immediately executed as a 
 convicted traitor. He resumed his intention of settling at 
 Avignon ; but for many weeks he was confined to his bed at 
 Calais, and it was not till the spring had made some progress 
 that he was able to begin his journey. Having bought a large 
 easy coach from his friend the President, who had continued 
 to show him great attention, he then set forward for Eouen, 
 where, in the hurry of his departure, some of his effects had 
 been left. Louis, smarting under the restraint of the Triple 
 Alliance, to which Charles, although his virtuous fit was 
 nearly over, still reluctantly adhered, Clarendon on his arrival 
 there found fresh assurances of the good-will of the French 
 Government, and permission to reside (with the exception of 
 Paris) in any part of France. 
 
 He still looked to Avignon as the place of his residence, 
 but resolved in his way thither to try to recruit his strength 
 by taking the waters of Bourbon. The first night after he 
 left Eouen he stopped at Evreux, — where he encountered a 
 peril which strongly shows his unpopularity at this time with 
 almost all classes of Englishmen, and their disposition to at- 
 tribute all their grievances to his misconduct. A company 
 of English seamen who had been employed in the French 
 artillery lay in the town, and being told of the arrival of Lord 
 Clarendon the famous Chancellor, whom they had heard 
 spoken of in their own country as the author of the bad mea- 
 sures which had enabled the Dutch to get to Chatham, and 
 the person who had applied the money voted for the support 
 of the navy to the embellishment of Dunkirk House, flocked 
 round his inn, declaring "that there were many months' ar- 
 rears due to them from England, and that they would make 
 him pay the whole before he should leave the place." On 
 account of his lameness he was lodged in a room on the 
 
124 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIII. 
 
 ground floor. The door being strongly barricaded, they at- 
 tempted to enter by the window ; but they were some time 
 kept at bay by Le Fonde, who still attended him as a com- 
 missioner on the part of the French Government, and by 
 the devoted efforts of his own servants. From a discharge of 
 fire-arms Le Fonde and one of the servants were wounded 
 and fell, — when the ringleader entered at the window, threw 
 open the door, and admitted the rest of the rioters. The 
 Ex-Chancellor was found sitting on his bed, and was knocked 
 down and stunned by a blow on the head from the flat side of 
 a broad-sword. Fortunately they differed among themselves 
 what they should do with him, — some crying that they would 
 instantly kill him, and others that they would carry him 
 prisoner into England. In the mean time they rifled his 
 pockets, broke open his trunks, and plundered his goods. The 
 ringleader protested against stabbing him in his bed-room as 
 conduct unworthy of English seamen, and proposed that a 
 gibbet should be erected in the court-yard, in the fashion of 
 a yard-arm, from which he should be suspended. To this 
 they all assented by acclamation, and they were dragging him 
 through a corridor to the intended place of execution when 
 their commanding officer arrived, accompanied by some of the 
 magistrates and the city guard, — and their victim was rescued 
 from impending death. He obtained an asylum in the house 
 of the Due de Bouillon. After a foolish dispute between two 
 sets of French functionaries respecting jurisdiction, the out- 
 rage having been committed in the suburbs of the town, the 
 rioters were seized, and the ringleader and two others of the 
 most culpable were afterwards broken on the wheel. 
 
 It turned out that on this occasion, though much frightened, 
 he had not received any serious hurt, and he was soon able to 
 prosecute his journey to Bourbon. There he remained some 
 weeks, deriving material benefit to his health from the waters, 
 from the soothing attentions of the company, and from the 
 tranquillity he was at last enabled to enjoy. He made 
 another agreeable rest at Lyons, and about midsummer he 
 arrived at Avignon. Here he was well received by the digni- 
 taries and magistrates, and he had reason to be satisfied with 
 the cheapness of living and the beauty of the surrounding 
 country. But he began to think it might have a strange ap- 
 pearance that he who had always been such a zealous Pro- 
 testant, should voluntarily choose to live and die under the 
 temporal dominion of the Pope. He was attracted by the 
 
A.P. 16G9. SETTLES AT MONTPELLIER. 125 
 
 climate and society of Montpellier. After an experimental 
 visit he established himself there, and during the two years 
 that it was his residence, he enjoyed as much happiness as was 
 consistent with separation from his country, his family, and 
 his friends. He was treated with great respect and civility 
 by the Governor, the inhabitants of the place, and all strangers 
 of distinction who visited it, and he was solaced by talking 
 the English language and of English affairs with the Earl and 
 Countess of Mordaunt, who were much attached to him, and 
 from the lady's delicate state of health were at this time resi- 
 dent at Montpellier. 
 
 He had to struggle against bodily pain and weakness by 
 which an ordinary man's mental activity would have been 
 subdued. " His indisposition and infiiTiiity, which either kept 
 him under the actual and .sharp visitation of the gout, or when 
 the rigour of that was abated, in much weakness of his limbs 
 when the pain was gone, were so great that he could not be 
 without the attendance of four servants about his own person ; 
 having in those seasons when he enjoyed most health and 
 underwent least pain, his knees, legs, and feet so weak that he 
 could not walk, especially up or down stairs, without the help 
 of two men." y 
 
 But his love of literature was again his true support. He 
 now proceeded to complete his " History of the Eebellion," 
 which had been so long suspended by his political and judi- 
 cial occupations ; he wrote his " Justification " against the 
 charges contained in his recent impeachment ; and he began 
 his "Autobiography," which was to contain a narrative of 
 his private life, with some account of public affairs after the 
 Eestoration. He likewise composed a number of Essays in 
 imitation of Lord Bacon's, and went on with his devotional 
 work on the Psalms, which he had begun at Jersey. In the 
 midst of all these occupations he took pains to im- 
 prove himself in the French language, of which he 
 had never been quite master, not having been familiar with it 
 when he was young, —and he began the study of Italian, 
 " towards which he made competent progress." z 
 
 He carried on an affectionate intercourse by letter with his 
 family, and he was now perhaps enjoying life more than 
 among the excitements, disappointments, and mortifications of 
 ambition, — when he heard that his daughter, the Duchess of 
 York, had openly embraced the Romish religion. He was 
 
 y Life, iii. 963. « Ibid- 373—376. 
 
126 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIIL 
 
 dreadfully shocked, but hoped to bring her back to the true 
 Protestant faith. With this view he wrote a long and elabo- 
 rate letter, in which he found himself obliged to depart from 
 the high-church ground he had so boldly taken up against the 
 Presbyterians, and on winch he had successfully resisted the 
 Bcheme of comprehension. " The common argument," he tells 
 her, "that there is no salvation out of the church is both 
 irrational and untrue. There are many churches in which 
 salvation may be obtained as well as in any one of them, and 
 were many even in the apostolic time ; otherwise the apostles 
 would not have directed their epistles to so many several 
 churches, in which there were different opinions received 
 and very different doctrines taught. There is, indeed, but 
 one faith in which we can be saved — the steadfast belief of 
 the birth, passion, and resurrection of our Saviour. And every 
 church that receives and embraces that faith is in a state of sal- 
 vation." If he had still dwelt on the apostolical succession, 
 the necessity for receiving the sacraments from a priest epis- 
 copally ordained, and the duty of implicitly believing with 
 child-like docility all that the church teaches, her Royal 
 Highness might have sent a triumphant answer to her father, 
 and shown him that, on his own principles, if he did not ab- 
 jure the Protestant heresy, his soul was in great peril, and ho 
 must renounce the covenanted mercies of the Gospel. 
 
 Clarendon at the same time despatched a similar missive to 
 the Duke, her husband. Choosing to assume that his Royal 
 Highness still remained a steady Protestant, (al- 
 though there was now little doubt with the public 
 of his having been reconciled to Rome, and of the Duchess 
 having gone over to please him,) the Ex-Chancellor condoled 
 with him on the grief he must suffer from her defection, and 
 (as he thought), with a refinement of policy, pointed out the 
 danger to the Catholics from such an open conversion, as they 
 would be sure to be treated with increased rigour. But in 
 spite of these pious efforts James soon after professed himself 
 to be a Roman Catholic in the face of the world, and the 
 Duchess steadily adhered to that faith till her death. 
 
 This event took place in March, 1671, and the intelligence 
 of it plunged her father into the deepest affliction. He was 
 tenderly attached to her, and he had complacently anticipated 
 the time (although he could not hope to live to see it) when 
 she would sit upon the throne, and teach her children who 
 were to reign after her to honour and to defend his memory. 
 
A.D. 1671-72. KING REFUSES HIM LEAVE TO RETURN. 127 
 
 His grief was soon after aggravated by hearing of the death of 
 her only surviving son, and lie trembled lest her daughters, 
 Mary and Anne, should, like their brothers and sisters, be 
 doomed to an early grave. 
 
 He was so overset that he conld no longer follow his usual 
 occupations, and change of scene being recommended 
 to him, he retired from Montpellier to Moulins. 
 
 Here he was consoled by the society of Lawrence, his se- 
 cond son, who with some difficulty obtained permission from 
 the English government to visit him. His spirits gradually 
 rallied, and he resumed his studies. Having finished his 
 " History of the Eebellion," he wrote to Charles II., and 
 after trying to soften him with an account of his desolate 
 condition in exile, he says, " I have performed a work under 
 this mortification, which I began with the approbation and 
 encouragement of your blessed father, and when I had the 
 honour to be near your Majesty, and which, if I do not over- 
 much flatter myself, may be for the honour of both your 
 Majesties." a He concluded by entreating, in pathetic terms, 
 " that an old man, who had served the Crown above thirty 
 years in some trust and with some acceptation, might be per- 
 mitted to end his days, which could not be many, in his own 
 country and in the society of his children." lie entertained 
 sanguine hopes that this appeal would be successful, and 
 he at the same time sent directions for the management of his 
 house and lands in England in the tone of one who expected 
 soon to revisit them. But Charles, by the advice of Clifford, 
 Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and .Lauderdale, having 
 broken the Triple Alliance, shut up the Exchequer, tried to 
 favour popery, and fallen into complete dependence upon the 
 French King, could not bear the idea of again seeing tho 
 face of his ancient monitor, under whose guidance his mea- 
 sures and his character had been comparatively respectable. 
 One might have supposed that he would have felt curiosity 
 to peruse the great historical work to which he himself had 
 formerly contributed some materials ; but now, absorbed in 
 present pleasure, he was wholly indifferent to the opinion 
 entertained of his father or himself by the present age or by 
 posterity. 
 
 The disappointment to Clarendon was severe, but he bore it 
 with fortitude. His steady props were literature and religion. 
 On the 8th of June, 1672, he commenced the Continuation of 
 
 B Clar. Pap. iii. Supp. xi. 
 
128 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIIL 
 
 his Life, which he entitled " Eeflections -upon the most 
 material Passages which happened after the King's Restora- 
 tion to the Time of the Chancellor's Banishment, out of which 
 Lis Children, for whose information only they are collected, 
 may add some important Passages to his Life as the true 
 cause of his misfortunes." During a visit to Pezenas he 
 steadily went on with it, and he finished it on his return. 
 At Moulins he also wrote " A View and Survey of Hobbes'a 
 Leviathan ; " " Animadversions on a Controversy between Dr. 
 Stillingneet and Mr. Crossy respecting the Catholic Church ; " 
 and "An Historical Discourse upon the Jurisdiction assumed 
 by the Popes." He even contemplated a new history of Eng- 
 land, "that it may be more profitably and exactly com- 
 municated than it hath yet been." b 
 
 But in the midst of these labours he perceived that his 
 ad 1674 bodily strength gradually declined, and that each 
 fresh access of his constitutional disorder, the gout, 
 became more formidable. As his career was visibly drawing 
 to a close, his desire to revisit his native land constantly in- 
 creased ; and that he might at least have the satisfaction of 
 being nearer it, — in the summer of 1674 he removed from 
 Moulins to Rouen, destined to be his last place of abode. 
 Here he made another effort upon the obdurate heart of 
 Charles, by a petition that he might be allowed to die among 
 his children. " Seven years," he observed, " was a time pre- 
 scribed and limited by God himself for the expiation of some 
 of his greatest judgments, and it is full that time since I have 
 with all possible humility sustained the insupportable weight 
 of the King's displeasure. Since it will be in nobody's power 
 long to prevent me from dying, methinks the desiring a place 
 to die in should not be thought a great presumption." But 
 Charles would not even vouchsafe to return him an answer. 
 
 After this disappointment he abandoned all hope in this 
 world, and prepared for a better. On the 1st of December he, 
 with difficulty, wrote his will in these words : — 
 
 " I, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, do order this to be my last will and 
 testament. Imprimis, I commit my soul to God, and make the ex- 
 ecutors of this said last will my two sons, Henry Viscount Cornbury 
 and Lawrence Hyde, Esq., and commend to them the care of my ser- 
 vants, who have behaved themselves very carefully and honestly to 
 me. And likewise recommend their sister, Frances Hyde, and their 
 
 b Life, UL 481. c Clar. Pap. iii. Supp. xl v. 
 
A.D. 1674-75. HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER. 12£ 
 
 brother, James Hyde, Esq., to their kindness, to whom I am able to 
 leave nothing but their kindness. Item, I give and bequeath to my 
 said two sons all my papers and writings of what kind soever, and 
 leave them entirely to their disposal, as they shall be advised, either by 
 suppressing or publishing, by the advice and approbation of my lord 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester, whom I en- 
 treat to be the overseers of this my will. And that they would be 
 both suitors to his Majesty on my children's behalf, who have all 
 possible need of his Majesty's charity, being children of a father who 
 never committed fault against his Majesty. 
 
 " Clakexdon." 
 
 His eldest son had come over to Kouen to attend him on the 
 news of his danger, and was with him to tne last. We have 
 no further particulars of his death-bed. lie expned on the 9th 
 of December, 1674, in the 65th year of his age. 
 
 By an arret of the French government during a temporary 
 difference with England, the "droit tfauhaine" was remitted in 
 favour of the heirs of the Earl of Clarendon if he should die in 
 France, — and this was still respected. His body was sent 
 over to his native country, and on the 4th of January, 1675, 
 was privately interred on the north side of Henry VII.'s 
 chapel in Westminster Abbey — an honour conceded, I pre- 
 sume, on account of his alliance to the royal family. But 
 although his two grand-daughters successively reigned in Eng- 
 land, no monument was ever erected to his memory, and there 
 is no inscription even to point out the spot where his dust 
 reposes. 
 
 He himself has left us more lasting memorials of his exist- 
 ence than marble or brass could furnish ; and he certainly 
 is a memorable personage in our annals, both by his actions 
 and his waitings. "Without the original genius and compre- 
 hensive grasp of intellect which distinguished his predecessor, 
 Bacon, he had an acute and vigorous understanding, which, 
 united with unwearied industry, made him a man of most 
 respectable acquirements, and admirably adapted him for the 
 scenes through which he w^s to pass. In ordinary times he 
 would have been known during his life merelv to his own 
 family, his personal friends, and his profession, and would 
 have been forgotten as soon as the tomb had closed over him ; 
 but amidst civil strife and revolutions, he was qualified to take 
 a leading part, and to influence the opinions and the conduct 
 of mankind. For delicacy of observation and felicity of de- 
 lineation of the characters of contemporaries » he is almost 
 without a rival. 
 
 VOL. iv. k. 
 
130 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXLa. 
 
 In his conduct we have much more to commend than to 
 censure. His early career was without a blemish ; and it is 
 only in considering how few would have done the same, that 
 we can properly appreciate his merit in seeking to gain dis- 
 tinction by the liberal practice of his profession, instead of 
 retiring to obscure indolence upon the competence left him 
 by his father, — and in readily renouncing that profession when 
 it had become to him a source of large emolument, that he 
 might be free to discharge his duties as a member of the legis- 
 lature at the great crisis of his country's fate. His efforts at 
 the opening of the Long Parliament for the punishment of the 
 Judges, and the correction of abuses, showed him to be a 
 sincere friend of constitutional freedom ; and if he proceeded 
 too far in supporting the attainder of Strafford, he might well 
 be excused, from the general enthusiasm then prevailing, and 
 the countenance of the virtuous men with whom he acted. 
 He went over to the King at a time when the disinterested- 
 ness of his motives was above all suspicion ; and the sound 
 advice which he then gave, if it had been followed, would 
 either have warded off a rupture, or would probably have 
 insured success to the royal cause. We shall nowhere find 
 better illustrated, than in the state papers he then wrote, the 
 sound principles of representative government and limited 
 monarchy. In his first exile we are called upon to forgive the 
 jealousy and hatred he displayed towards his rival, Lord 
 Keeper Herbert — which we can do, while we admire his 
 fidelity, his industry, and his fortitude. 
 
 We see him on a more trying scene, when in possession of 
 supreme power; and I think it is impossible to defend or 
 much to palliate the gross breach of his solemn engagements 
 to the Presbyterians — his extreme illiberality in matters of 
 church discipline — his long-continued negotiation with the 
 Queen to induce her to take the King's mistress into her 
 establishment as one of her ladies of honour — his earnest dis- 
 avowals of having counteracted the King's designs on Miss 
 Stuart — his affected indignation at the announcement of his 
 daughter's marriage with the Duke of York, and his pretended 
 wish that she were his mistress — his encouraging the King to 
 receive money privately from France — his sale, for the purpose 
 of contributing to the King's profligate pleasures, of an impor- 
 tant fortress, which had been added by the Commonwealth to 
 the dominions of England — his repeal of the Triennial Act, 
 without any effectual provision to limit the duration or to pre* 
 
Chap. LXXXITI. AS A JUDGE. 131 
 
 vent the intermission of parliaments — or his violent opposition 
 to the appropriation of the supplies and the revision by parlia- 
 ment of the public expenditure. But, on the other hand, we 
 must bear in mind his steady adherence to the promise of in- 
 demnity, notwithstanding the odium he thereby incurred with 
 the dominant party — his oppositipn to the plan of rendering 
 the crown independent of parliament by the grant of a large 
 permanent revenue — his confirmation of the abolition of mili- 
 tary tenures arid re-enactment of other good laws of the 
 Commonwealth — his opposition to the Dutch war — his steady 
 support of the reformed religion, at the risk of losing the 
 favour of the King — and his efforts to stem the tide of open 
 immorality, which, flowing from the court, was threatening to 
 corrupt the manners of the whole nation. If disposed to blame 
 him very severely for remaining in office when his advice was 
 not followed and he disapproved of the measures of the govern- 
 ment, we should remember that then a unanimous cabinet wars 
 not considered by any means necessary, — persons once ap- 
 pointed to the offices of Treasurer, or Chancellor, or Secretary 
 of State, no more thought of voluntarily resigning than a 
 common law judge, — and, till the King dismissed them, they 
 went on doing the duties of their departments and giving their 
 opinions at the council table when required to do so, leaving 
 the Sovereign to decide when his ministers were divided. Ju 
 forming a judgment of Clarendon's administration we must 
 likewise always bear in mind what a character he had to 
 manage in Charles II., — and we should look to that King's 
 subsequent conduct under' other counsellors. 
 
 His judicial duties he seems to nave discharged to the satis 
 faction of the public. Burnet says, " He was a good Chancellor, 
 only a little too rough ; but very impartial in the administra- 
 tion of justice ; " and Pepys, having heard some cases decided 
 by him, makes this entry in his journal, " I perceive my Lord 
 is a most able and ready man." These testimonies are not 
 very high as to legal capacity, but show strongly the favour- 
 able impression made on the public by his manner and deport- 
 ment. In the Court of Chancery he was kept right by his 
 assessors. The judicial business of the House of Lords was 
 then exceedingly small. From the long discontinuance of 
 parliaments in the reign of Charles I. and the disturbances 
 which had prevailed for the twenty years which followed the 
 meeting of the Long Parliament, the House of Lords had ceased 
 to be regarded as the highest court of justice in the kingdom, 
 
 K 2 
 
132 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIIL 
 
 as it had formerly been ; and in Clarendon's time, luckily 
 for him, it had hardly recovered its appellate jurisdiction. 
 He was the only Law Lord in the House, and his opinion on 
 legal questions would not have carried with it much weight. 
 
 He admirably performed one of the most important duties 
 of a Chancellor by raising the best men he could find to the 
 bench. The aggregate of evil inflicted on the community by a 
 bad judicial appointment is so enormous, that it would be less 
 mischievous to the public if a Chancellor were to accept a 
 bribe for pronouncing an unjust decree, than if, yielding to 
 personal favour or party bias, he should make an incompetent 
 .fudge. Hale was supposed to owe his promotion to a desire 
 to take from the House of Commons the active supporter of 
 the Comprehension Bill ; but Bridgeman, Twisden, Foster, 
 and Windham, with respect to whom there could be no sus- 
 picion of improper motive, were placed by his side. 
 
 Clarendon likewise has the merit of having listened favour- 
 ably to the suggestion of Hale and other enlightened jurists, 
 who were for following up the law reforms begun under the 
 Commonwealth ; and under his auspices, on the 5th of Octo- 
 ber, 1666, the House of Commons appointed " a Committee to 
 confer with such of the Lords, the Judges, and other persons 
 of the long robe who have already taken pains and made pro- 
 gress in perusing the statute law ; and to consider of repeal- 
 ing such former statute laws as they shall find necessary to be 
 repealed, and, if expedient, of reducing all laws of one nature 
 under such a method as may conduce to the more ready 
 understanding and better execution of such laws, " d — an 
 exploit still remaining for the glory of some future Lord 
 Chancellor. 
 
 He was charged in his impeachment with the sale of offices, 
 and with receiving money for passing illegal patents, but no- 
 thing like judicial corruption was established against him. 
 
 He certainly put the Great Seal to proclamations which we 
 should consider beyond the power of the prerogative, — as that 
 all who had served in the army of the Commonwealth should 
 retire above twenty miles from London ; and that after the fire 
 of London, the new edifices should be after a specified design 
 and of specified materials. Nay, he wished to issue a commission 
 to shut up all coffee-houses, by reason of dangerous talk in 
 them. But the boundary between things that may be done 
 by royal authority, and things requiring a legislative act, wa* 
 
 d Com. Jour. Oct. 5. 1666. 
 
Chap. LXXXIII. HIS "HISTORY OF THE REBELLION." 133 
 
 then very undefined in England, as it still is in the conti- 
 nental states in which a constitutional monarchy has been at- 
 tempted. Thus, before any statute had passed to regulate the 
 press, Clarendon, without exciting any remark, issued an order 
 for seizing all copies of Buchanan's ' ' Histoiy of Scotland " 
 and his Dialogue " De jure regni apud Scotos," as pernicious 
 to monarchy and injurious to his Majesty's blessed progenitors. 
 
 But we must seriously blame Clarendon, as head of the law, 
 for sanctioning the prosecution and execution of Twyn for high 
 treason, because he had published a book alleged to be sedi- 
 tious ; — the doctrine being laid down, and acted upon, " that 
 the publishing of this book is all one and the same as if he had 
 raised an army to dethrone the King." e 
 
 The reports of his parliamentary speeches which have come 
 down to us do not by any means answer the expectation we 
 are led to form of him as an orator, for he is one of the earliest 
 instances of a man rising to high office through success in par- 
 liament. He was undoubtedly a powerful debater in both 
 Houses, and he seems to have gained great public reputation 
 by these efforts, without the assistance of Hansard or the 
 newspapers. Evelyn mentions "his eloquent tongue," and 
 Pepys says, in his characteristic quaint style, " I am mad in 
 love with my Lord Chancellor, for he do comprehend and 
 speak out well, and with the greatest easiness and authority 
 that ever I saw man in my life." The authority with which 
 he addressed the Lords may be gathered from Evelyn's ad- 
 miration of " his manner and freedom of doing it, as if he 
 played with it, and was informing only all the rest of the 
 company." f Yet his addresses to the two Houses by order of 
 the King, and the ether specimens of his oratory which are 
 preserved, though showing good judgment and discretion, are 
 without any thing at all striking in thought or expression, and 
 are greatly inferior to his writings. On these his reputation 
 Bafely reposes. 
 
 It is easy to point out faults in his " History of the Ee- 
 bellion," — its redundancies, its omissions, its inaccuracies, its 
 '.misrepresentations, its careless style, and its immethodical 
 arrangement. But of all history contemporary history is the 
 
 e 6 St. Tr. 531. there did get a very great meeting ; the Duke 
 
 f Pepys, iii. 62. From the same source we of York being there, and much business done, 
 
 learn that, like other great and good men, he though not in proportion to the greatness of 
 
 »»-«s sometimes caught napping. " Nov. 20th, the business, and my Lord Chancellor sleep- 
 
 1666. By coach to Barkeshire House, and ing and snoring the greater part of the time.'* 
 
134 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIIL 
 
 most valuable ; of contemporary histories that is to be pre- 
 ferred which is written by one who took a part in the events 
 related ; and of all such contemporary histories, in our own or 
 any other language, this great work is the most to be admired, 
 for graphic narration of facts, for just exposition of motives, 
 and for true and striking delineation of character. g We find 
 in it a freshness, a spirit, a raciness, which induce us, in spite 
 of all its imperfections, to lay it down with regret, and to 
 resume it with new pleasure. With regard to its sincerity, 
 which has been so much contested, perhaps the author may 
 be acquitted of wilfully asserting what is false ; but he seems 
 to have considered himself fully justified in suppressing what 
 is true, when he thought he could do so for the advantage of 
 his party. He made no secret with his friends, that he was 
 writing an apology for the King, which ' ' should give no in- 
 formation to posterity, where it could not give that it would, 
 and should leave his memory happy, though his reign had been 
 so unfortunate." h The reader of the History is surprised at 
 finding; in it no allusion to the Kind's negotiation with Gla- 
 morgan and the Catholics of Ireland ; but this omission is ex- 
 plained by the historian's private letter to Secretary Nicholas : 
 " I care not how little I say of that business of Ireland, since 
 those strange powers and instructions given to your favourite, 
 Glamorgan, which appear to me so inexcusable to justice, 
 piety, and prudence." ' 
 
 Perhaps unconsciously, he makes his History the vehicle for 
 his personal partialities and antipathies ; and what it thus 
 gains in liveliness it certainlv loses in authority. k 
 
 There are likewise to be found in the work statements of 
 dates, speeches, and occurrences, entirely at variance with 
 the journals of the two Houses and other authentic records, 
 and which, being against his party as often as in favour of it, 
 we can only account for by his want of opportunity to con- 
 sult original papers. His memory failing him, he seems, oc- 
 casionally, to have filled up the interval with what he deemed 
 probable and characteristic, as if he had been writing an his- 
 torical romance. 1 " 
 
 £ Of course I do not allude to such narra- m I have had occasion to point out the 
 
 tives as Caesar's Commentaries, or the Me- spite which he ever betrays in mentioning 
 
 moirs of De Retz. the name of Sir Edward Herbert, his rival for 
 
 h Letter to Colepoper, Clar. Pap ii. 327. the Great Seal. His injustice to John Ash- 
 
 i Clar. Pap. ii. 037. burnham, who held an office in the King's 
 
 k See Hallam's Const. Hist. ii. 302. Edin- household, and accompanied him on his flight 
 
 burgh Review, Xo. ciii. cxxxix. Quarterly from Oxford and Hampton Court, is strongly 
 
 Review, No. cxxiv. exposed by the Earl of Ashburnham. See * 
 
Chap. LXXXIII. HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND LETTERS. 135 
 
 With all these abatements, the " History of the Eebellion " 
 was a great accession to English literature : and it will con- 
 tinue to be read when Hume may be superseded by another 
 compiler, equally lively and engaging, and more painstaking 
 and impartial. 11 
 
 Clarendon's " Life" and " Continuation " p are inferior pro- 
 ductions. His genius and his style do not bend to the fami- 
 liarity of personal narrative ; he seldom interests us in his 
 individual adventures or feelings ; he hardly ever introduces 
 us to his domestic circle ; and his great object is to defend 
 himself, as a public man, from the imputations which had 
 been made against him, or to which he thought he was liable. 
 Writing so long after the occurrences he narrates, and with his 
 impaired memory only to rely upon, he is generally vague and 
 unsatisfactory, and sometimes falls into unaccountable blunders. 
 He furnishes us with few interesting anecdotes of himself or 
 his contemporaries ; and when he does give us a glimpse of 
 private life, — from the unsuitableness of his manner and style, 
 he is not so entertaining as when with verve he describes pro- 
 ceedings of the legislature or campaigns in the field. 
 
 With the other writings which amused his exile, I am not 
 sufficiently acquainted to pronounce any opinion upon them ; 
 but, from a glance at them, I am convinced that his answer 
 to Hobbes could not do much to correct the errors of that 
 philosopher, and that the rest have deservedly fallen into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Although his Letters have been highly commended, I own 
 they seem to me extremely stiff and heavy ; and it seems hardly 
 possible to believe that he lived in the same - age and country 
 with Dryden, who had shown so strikingly the power of the 
 English language in this as in almost every other species of 
 prose and metrical composition. 
 
 While he was himself uninitiated in science, he had the 
 merit, as Chancellor, of promoting the establishment of the 
 Royal Society ; and that learned body, then so illustrious, 
 
 Narrative by John Ashburnham, and edited for brilliancy of description, vigour of senti- 
 
 by the Earl of Ashburnham, his lineal de- ment, and elegance of style, certainly are 
 
 scendant. 2 vols. 8vo. 1830. delightful. I may mention as a benefit to 
 
 n Whitelock's Memorials, being a diary, learning conferred by the " History of the 
 
 are far more accurate than Clarendon's His- Rebellion," that its profits founded the Cla- 
 
 tory, and are a most valuable repertory ; but rendox Press at Oxford, from which so 
 
 seldom assume the form of continuous nar- many valuable works have issued, 
 ration. The only contemporary writer to be ° Commenced at Montpellier^uly, 1668. 
 compared to him is Ludlow, whose Memoirs, P Commenced at Moulins, June, 1672. 
 
136 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIII. 
 
 thanked him for his conduct, which they were pleased to say 
 had " wiped away the aspersion that had been scandalously 
 cast on the profession of the law, that it is an enemy to learn- 
 ing and the civil arts." q 
 
 On the Restoration he was elected Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford, where his ecclesiastical policy was highly 
 prized, in spite of his political moderation, and where his 
 memory is held in the deepest veneration ; but he had reason 
 to believe that when he had lost the favour of the court, 
 he would have been deposed from his office ; and to av tid 
 this disgrace, as soon as he reached Calais, in 1667, he re- 
 signed it. 
 
 From his early entrance into good society, and from his 
 long travels abroad, we should have expected his manners to 
 be remarkably disengaged and agreeable ; but although Burnet 
 says, " he had too much levity m his wit, and did not always 
 observe the decorum of his post," all other authorities repre- 
 sent him as formal, haughty, and supercilious. . It is clear that 
 he attached infinite importance to the possession of the Great 
 Seal, and so sweetly did the word "Chancellor" sound in 
 his ear, that by this title he constantly designates himself, and 
 represents others addressing him, long before he had received 
 the appointment, and after he had lost it. It is quite clear 
 that he stood upon his dignity much more than Charles ; and 
 he must have been an admirable subject of ridicule for the 
 mimic statesmen who surrounded this merry monarch. Yet 
 he was capable of forming warm friendships with such men as 
 Falkland, Southampton, and Ormond. 
 
 After the Restoration he lived in great splendour. For a 
 short time he occupied Dorset House in Salisbury Court, once 
 the residence of the bishops of Salisbury. But he soon re- 
 ceived a letter from the Marquis of Worcester, soliciting 
 favours, and saying, " Be pleased to accept of Worcester 
 House to live in, farr more comodious for jt. Lo. than where 
 you now are, without requiring from yr. Lo. one penny rent 
 (yet that only knowne between yr. Lo. and me)." This was 
 evidently intended as a bribe ; but Clarendon says he insisted 
 on paying for it a yearly rent of 500?/ Here he resided during 
 almost the whole of his administration ; and when he was 
 laid up by the gout, here the King used to come to attend 
 
 1 Sprat's History of the Royal Society, p. the Strand, on the ground now occupied by 
 143. Beaufort Buildings, 
 
 Life, iii. 486. Worcester House stood in 
 
Chap. LXXXII1. CLARENDON HOUSE. 137 
 
 councils held in his bed- room. In 1666, during the great fire 
 of London, which was expected to destroy the west end of the 
 town as well as the city, all his furniture and goods were sent 
 off to a villa he had at Twickenham. After a short residence 
 in Berkshire House, near St. James's, he moved, when his fall 
 was approaching, to his new palace, which he had been con- 
 structing some years, on a piece of ground granted to him by 
 the Crown, on the road to Kensington, where Albemarle Street 
 now stands. Evelyn says it was " the first palace, the best 
 contrived, the most useful, graceful, and magnificent house in 
 England — nothing abroad pleased him better — nothing at 
 home approached it." 8 The estimate of the architect stated 
 the expense at 20,000?. ; but it actually came to near three 
 times that amount. The furnishing was suitable to the archi- 
 tecture. His library was one of the finest ever collected in 
 England, and he had a picture gallery filled with the chefs- 
 d'oeuvre of the best masters. Evelyn states " that many of these 
 were gifts ; and that when his design was once made known, 
 everybody who either had them of their own, or could purchase 
 them at any price, strove to make their court by these pre- 
 sents." The erection of this palace he considered the capital 
 error of his life, as "it more contributed to that gust of envy, 
 which had so violently shaken him, than any misdemeanour 
 that he was thought to have been guilty of, and it infinitely 
 discomposed his whole affairs and broke his estate." l He had 
 likewise a magnificent country house at Cornbury in Oxford- 
 shire, where he exercised hospitality on a grand scale during 
 the long vacations. It is related that on one occasion all the 
 gentry of the surrounding country flocking into his hall to pay 
 their court to him, Lenthal, the Speaker of the Long Parlia- 
 ment, went among the number, and being much " fleered at by 
 the company," he said, in the hearing of them all, " My Lord, 
 pray observe these very gentlemen, who are now so eager to 
 bow to your Lordship, have done the very same to me, and 
 may before long turn their backs upon you" — "a just repri- 
 mand to the gentlemen," says my authority, "and a prudent 
 caution to the Chancellor." u 
 
 From such splendour was he indeed at once reduced to live 
 in a miserable lodging in a provincial town in a foreign 
 country. But the resignation and fortitude he then displayed 
 have inclined us to forget his faults and to revere his memory ; 
 
 8 Ev. ii. 280. t Life, iii. 9T1. 
 
 u Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon (L. C), 320. 
 
138 LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON. Chap. LXXXIII 
 
 and lie is more to be admired and envied while composing his 
 immortal work at Montpellier and Monlins, than when, flattered 
 by treacherous courtiers, he reclined amidst the splendours of 
 Clarendon House and Cornbuiy. 
 
 Besides his daughter, the Duchess of York, through whom 
 he was the grandsire of sovereigns, he left three sons, who 
 gained some distinction in the reigns of James II. and William 
 III. The most eminent was Lawrence, the second, created 
 Earl of Eochester, celebrated in " Absalom and Achitophel." 
 
 Hcshat, the friend of David in distress, 
 In public storms of manly stedfastness; 
 By foreign treaties he inform'd his youth, 
 And join'd experience to his native truth." 
 
 P»ut the Chancellor's male line failed about the middle of the 
 last century. He is now represented through a female, by the 
 present Earl of Clarendon, destined to add new lustre to the 
 title which he bears. x 
 
 x Grandeur of the Law, p, TO. 
 
A.D. 1667. LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. 1S9 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXIY. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN". 
 
 Clarendon liad been dismissed from office, not by the intrigues 
 of a competitor for the Great Seal, or from a desire of Aug. 31, 
 the Court to confer it upon some aspiring lawyer who 1667 - 
 by talent or subserviency had raised himself to political emi- 
 nence. The disposal of it in fact caused great perplexity. 
 After many doubts and conflicting plans among the King's 
 male and female advisers, it was put into the hands of a grave 
 common-law Judge, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice of the Common Pleas, — at first merely as a temporary 
 arrangement, till another Lord Keeper could be fixed upon ; 
 but he held it, with that title, for five years ; and his life 
 therefore must now engage our attention. 
 
 He was the son of Dr. John Bridgeman, Bishop of Chester, 
 descended from a respectable family in Devonshire. His 
 mother was a daughter of Dr. Keylar, canon of Exeter, and 
 archdeacon of Barnstaple. Having been well grounded in 
 classical learning under his father's tuition, he was entered of 
 Queen's College, Cambridge, in July, 1619, and there took 
 his degree of B. A. in January, 1623. In the following year 
 he was entered of the Inner Temple. He certainly must have 
 studied at his Inn of Court with great assiduity, for he was a 
 profound master of the oommon law. To his profession he 
 chiefly devoted himself through life, affording little of his time 
 to literature or politics. He was particularly famous for dili- 
 gent attendance in court at all interesting arguments ; and 
 while a student he took very full and accurate notes of cases, 
 which he afterwards cited from the bench. a He was called to 
 the bar in 1632. Although he was to inherit a good estate 
 from his father, he addicted himself to business ; and though 
 not much distinguished for eloquence, his great learning and 
 industry procured him considerable employment. 
 
 At the meeting of the Long Parliament he was returned for 
 the borough of Wigan. He took the King's side zealously 
 
 a Bridg. Rep. 27. 
 
140 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. Chap. LXXXIV 
 
 from, the beginning, but lie did not venture to encounter Pym,. 
 St. John, or Hyde in debate, and contented himself with giving 
 silent votes against the abolition of the Star Chamber, and the 
 other reforms then introduced. Once he had the courage to 
 say a few words against Strafford's attainder. 
 
 When hostilities commenced he did riot throw aside the 
 gown for the sword ; but he repaired to his native 
 place, that, by his advice and influence as a civilian, 
 he might there support the royal cause. " The city of Ches- 
 ter," says Lord Clarendon, " was firm to the King by the virtue 
 of the inhabitants, and the interest of the Bishop and Cathedral 
 men ; but especially by the reputation and dexterity of Mr. 
 0. Bridgeman, son to the Bishop, and a lawyer of very good 
 estimation ; who not only informed them of their duty, and 
 encouraged them in it, but upon his credit and estate, both 
 which were very good, supplied them with whatsoever was 
 necessary for their defence." The citizens thus roused and 
 encouraged were eager to defend their walls, and Sir Nicholas 
 Byron, a gallant and experienced soldier, being sent to com- 
 mand them as governor, they carried the war into the enemies' 
 quarters at Nantwich. 
 
 But the activity of the honourable member for Wigan in 
 those parts being reported at Westminster, on the 29th of 
 August, 1642, he was unanimously expelled the House for 
 deserting its service, and assisting in the defence of Chester 
 against the Parliament. b 
 
 When the King summoned the members of the two Houses 
 who were faithful to him, to assemble at Oxford in January, 
 1645, Bridgeman, still considering himself the lawful repre- 
 sentative for Wigan, took his seat in Christ Church Hall, and 
 joined in the resolutions of the supposed House of Commons, 
 and subscribed the Letter to the Earl of Essex. As a reward 
 for his services, by patent under the Great Seal at Oxford 
 passed by Lord Keeper Littleton, he was appointed " Attorney 
 General to the Court of Wards and Liveries," an office, when 
 actually exercised, of great importance and emolument, but now 
 a mere feather in his cap. Even this the Parliament would not 
 allow him to wear in their sight. When the treaty of Uxbridge 
 was to take place, Bridgeman was named one of the King's 
 Commissioners, and was designated by his new title ; but the 
 Westminster potentates having voted that all grants under the 
 Great Seal were void after it had been carried to Charles at 
 
 b 2 Pari. Hist. 611. 
 
A.D. 1646-60. KING'S COMMISSIONER AT UXBRIDGE 141 
 
 York in 1642, would not recognise his promotion, and insisted 
 that he should appear in the commission and passport as plain 
 " Orlando Bridgeman." c 
 
 When the treaty began, the grand question as to the militia, 
 or the power of the sword, — upon which the rupture took 
 place, and which ever prevented a settlement, — was assigned 
 to Bridgeman and three other great lawyers, Lane, Gardiner, 
 and Palmer. They here clearly had right on their side, and 
 when they made the demand of the power of the sword by the 
 parliament appear to be without law or justice, their opponents 
 never offered to allege any other argument than " the deter- 
 mination of the parliament," from which they could not recede. 
 The parliamentary Commissioners seem to have admitted pri- 
 vately that the law was against them, but to have urged that 
 the command of the army was absolutely necessary for their 
 security, and that the refusal of it could proceed from nothing 
 but a resolution to take the highest vengeance upon them for 
 their resistance. d 
 
 The subsequent struggle in the field having terminated in 
 the triumph of the parliament, and Oxford having ad 
 capitulated to Fairfax, Bridgeman first withdrew to 
 his house in the country, and then came privately to London. 
 But he would not recognise the usurped authority of the parlia- 
 ment so far as to put on his gown and plead, even before a 
 Eolle or a Hale. During the Commonwealth he practised as a 
 conveyancer and chamber counsel. Lord Holt, in referring to 
 this period of his life, says, "My Lord Chief Justice Bridge- 
 man was a very studious gentleman ; and, though he kept to his 
 chamber, yet he had an account brought him of all that passed 
 in the Courts." He looked forward to better times, but thought 
 it more politic to trust to the growing discontent of the nation 
 than to engage in any of the premature royalist plots, which 
 ended in ruining the authors of them, and strengthening the 
 existing government. 
 
 When Monk marched to the South, Bridgeman crept out 
 from his hole, and exerted himself actively, though ad 
 cautiously, to further the Eestoration. Another repre- 
 sentative having been returned for Wigan after his expulsion, 
 he does not seem to have attempted to resume his place in the 
 House of Commons on the last re-establishment of the Long 
 
 •The same objection was made to the Lane as Chief Baron, and Gardiner as Solicit** 
 designation of Colepeper as Master of the General. 
 Rolls, Hyde as Chancellor of the Exchequer, d His*. Reb. a. viii. 
 
142 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. Chap. LXXXIV. 
 
 Parliament (or the " Ruinp "), and the re-admission of the 
 secluded members. One would have expected to find him 
 returned with other distinguished cavalier laAvyers to the Con- 
 vention Parliament, but his name does not appear in the list of 
 its members. Nevertheless, he must have been in communi- 
 cation with the Court, and high in the confidence of Hyde ; 
 for two days after the King's return to Whitehall a writ was 
 issued under the Great Seal for calling him to the degree of a 
 Serjeant at law, and in two days more he was created Lord 
 Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. 6 He was soon after 
 appointed to sit as Speaker of the House of Lords, in the absence 
 of the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 In October, the same year, he presided at the trial of the 
 regicides. We find handed down to us some of the flowers of 
 his eloquence, in charging the grand jury on this occasion. 
 Having explained to them that the treason consisted " in 
 imagining and compassing the King's death," and stated that the 
 prisoners had gone farther, and " executed him on a scaffold 
 in front of his own palace," he said, " Certainly this is so 
 much beyond the imagination and compassing, as it is not 
 only laying the cockatrice's egg, but brooding upon it till it 
 hath brought forth a serpent." After stating that the crown 
 of England is an imperial crown, he asks, "What is an im- 
 perial crown ? It is that which, as to the coercive part, is 
 subject to no man under God. The King of Poland has a 
 crown ; but what is it ? At his coronation he is conditioned 
 with the people, that if he shall not govern them according to 
 such and such rules, they shall be freed from their homage and 
 allegiance ; but the crown of England is, and always was, an 
 imperial crown, — not subject to any human tribunal or judica- 
 ture whatever. As to the person of the King, he is not to be 
 touched. Touch not mine anointed. It is true (blessed be God !) 
 we have as great liberties as any people have in Christendom, 
 but let us owe them where they are due ; we have them by the 
 concession of our Princes. Our Princes have granted them, 
 and the King now grants them." Having stirred up their 
 indignation by a rhetorical description of the King's death, he 
 thus concludes, — " No story that ever was, — I do not think 
 that any romance — any fabulous tragedy, — can produce the like. 
 You are now to inquire of blood — of royal blood — of sacred 
 blood — blood like that of the saints under the altar, crying, 
 Quousgue, Domine. This blood cries for vengeance ; and it 
 
 June 2 1660. Dug. Or. Jur. 1660. 
 
A.D. 16(30-67. PRESIDES AT TRIAL OF REGICIDES. 14.3 
 
 will not be appeased without a bloody sacrifice. He that 
 conceals the guilt of blood takes it upon himself — wilfully, 
 knowingly takes it upon hiniself ; and we know that when the 
 Jews said, Let las blood be on us and our seed, it continued and 
 continues to bring a curse unto them and their* posterity to 
 this day." f 
 
 I cannot say there is any bad law here, but the political doc- 
 trines promulgated must have drawn a disagreeable gaze on 
 the Duke of Albemarle, the Earl of Manchester, Lord Hollis, 
 and others, who, having been active Commonwealth's men, 
 had the bad taste to be present as Judges on their coUaborateurs. 
 It has been said that when the indictments were found by the 
 Grand Jury, and the prisoners were tried seriatim before 
 Bridgeman, "he distinguished himself by his acrimony, in- 
 temperance, and inhumanity ;" s but though I do not agree in 
 the panegyric upon him, that " he was a man of great learning 
 and greater temperance" h I do not discover much to censure in 
 his conduct on these trials. He was bound to require A j>. 1660— 
 the parties to plead guilty or not guilty, before they 166v - 
 addressed the Court. The observation which General Harrison 
 was beginning, " Divers of those who sat upon the Bench were 
 formerly as active " though true, could not be decently per- 
 mitted. The defence, that the King's trial was under an Ordi- 
 nance of the House of Commons, required to be overruled ; and 
 the suggestion that " the whole proceeding had been approved 
 by God," might well justify strong remarks upon its criminality. 
 We should think it rather strange if a Judge were to tell the 
 Jury that a capital charge was so clearly proved that they 
 ought to find a verdict of guilty without leaving the box ; but 
 even fair Judges were not so squeamish in those days, and the 
 case was made out in law, and, in fact, beyond all possibility 
 of doubt. He checked the applause which burst out at the 
 verdict, stating that it was more fitting for a stage play than a 
 Court of Justice.' 
 
 As soon as the trials were over he was made a Baronet, and 
 promoted to be Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. 
 " 'While he presided in this Court," says Granger, " his reputa- 
 tion was at the height ; then his moderation and equity were 
 such that he seemed to carry a chancery in his breast. His 
 own reports of his decisions certainly show that he was a very 
 learned, acute, and pains-taking Judge." k 
 
 { Manning's Report of the Serjeant's Case h Siderfin, 3. i 5 St. Tr. 947. 
 
 5 St. Tr. 998. 6 Semens ad Legem, 181. * Vol. iii. 361. In the arguments of Chtei 
 
144 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. Chap. LXXXJV 
 
 Presiding in a court, which merely decided questions of pro- 
 perty between party and party, he had few opportunities of 
 showing his political bias, but such as occurred he very eagerly 
 improved. His most celebrated judgment is that in the case 
 of.Benyon v. Evelyn," which has endeared his memory to the 
 enemies of parliamentary privilege. In an action for a debt, 
 which was clearly barred by " the Statute of Limitations," the 
 defence was likewise grounded on a resolution of the House of 
 Commons with respect to the commencement of an action 
 against a member during the sitting of parliament. The Chief 
 Justice, who, as we have seen, thought that all our liberties 
 were octroyed or granted by the Crown, and wished that they 
 should still be considered as depending on the good pleasure 
 of the reigning sovereign, — of course highly disapproved of 
 the notion that there was any privilege constitutionally in- 
 herent in the Houses of Parliament. He had himself been ex- 
 pelled the House of Commons by an abuse of an assumed privi- 
 lege ; he had observed the great advantage which parliament 
 had derived from the doctrine of privilege in its struggles with 
 the Crown during the last reign ; and, though parliament was 
 at present abundantly subservient, he had the sagacity to fore- 
 see that similar struggles might again arise. His object there- 
 fore was to aim a blow at privilege, by very unnecessarily and 
 wantonly denying that any weight was to be attached to re- 
 solutions of the two Houses respecting their privileges, and 
 asserting that parliamentary privilege was to be defined, 
 limited, and determined by the King's Judges. The judg- 
 ment in favour of the defendant being clearly right on other 
 grounds, it could not be brought before any other tribunal ; 
 and no member of parliament being affected by the result, it 
 could not be noticed by either House. In truth, not the 
 slightest particle of public attention seems to have been be- 
 stowed upon it at the time ; but being recently discovered, it 
 has placed Lord Chief Justice Bridgeman on a pinnacle, and 
 we are now called upon to honour him as the champion of our 
 laws and liberties. 11 
 
 That he was not a Judge of very enlarged views we may 
 conjecture from his celebrated construction of the clause of 
 
 Justice Bridgeman mcthinks I find that afterwards was advanced to the highest office 
 
 evisceratio causes, as the Roman orator calls a person of that profession can be capable, 
 
 it, an exact anatomy of the case, and a dex- " That he alicays argued like a lawyer and a 
 
 terous pier:ing into the very bowels of it ; gentleman." — Preface to Carter's Reports. 
 and it was no small commendation of an m Bridg. Rep. 324. 
 •minent professer of our law, and one that n See Lord Campbell's Speeches, p. 31C. 
 
A.D. 1667. GREAT SEAL DELIVERED TO HIM. 145 
 
 Magna Chart a, providing for the due administration of 
 justice. The Court of Common Pleas, in the reign of Charles 
 II., was held in Westminster Hall, near the great northern 
 gate, and the Judges, counsel, attorneys, suitors, and by- 
 standers being much annoyed by the cold and the noise, there 
 was a general wish that the Court should be removed to an ad- 
 joining recess, from which the voice of the Serjeants, when 
 eloquent, might still have been heard in the Hall; but the 
 Chief Justice would by no means agree to this innovation, " as 
 the Great Charter enacts that the Court of Common Pleas, in- 
 stead of following the King in his progresses, shall be held in 
 aliquo certo loco ;" so that, after the proposed removal, all the 
 proceedings of the Court would be " coram non judice, and 
 void," 
 
 Dunns* the illnesses of the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justice 
 Bridgeman frequently sat Speaker in the House of Lords, but 
 ho seems to have been very little connected with any political 
 party or leader, and not to have aimed at any higher promo- 
 tion. He was not at all mixed up in the intrigues which 
 ended in the removal of Clarendon ; and Lady Castlemaine, 
 Buckingham, Ashley, and Arlington only thought of him as a 
 person who might be safely trusted to hold the Great Seal till 
 they could fix upon some one likel}- more actively to promote 
 the measures or jobs which they had in contemplation. 1 " It 
 was arranged that he should still retain his office of Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, and, in fact, he did retain it 
 near a year after he was appointed Lord Keeper. q 
 
 The ceremony of delivering the Great Seal to him took 
 place at Whitehall, on Saturday the 31st of August, 1667 ; and 
 "on the Wednesday following, in full council, he took the 
 oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and of the office of Lord 
 Keeper, and of a Privy Councillor." r He had the long vacation 
 to prepare himself for the duties of his new office, but not ex- 
 pecting to hold it, or being insuperably unfit for it, he never 
 
 ° North's Life of Guilford, i. 185. This Bridgeman, with ivhonie Tiee sayes hee will ad- 
 
 decision rather supports Erasmus's account of vise concerning his Lop.'s successour. I cannot 
 
 P^nglish lawyers: "Doctissimum genus in; but still be of y e opinion that not only tbo 
 
 doctissimorum hominum." publique affaires will bee bettered by this 
 
 P In a very artful letter written on the change, but that my Lord Chancell r will find 
 very evening of Bridgeman's appointment, by greater ease by it than he seemes yet to he- 
 Arlington, to break the news to the Duke of lieve hee shall." 
 
 Ormond, Clarendons fast friend— after stating 1 He was succeeded by Lord C. J. Vaughar* 
 
 that the King had sent for the seals by Se- on the 23rd of May, 1668. 
 cretary Morrice, he says, " and this night his r Cr. Off. Min. 1667. 
 Majesty hath- given them to my Lorde 
 
 VOL. IV. L 
 
1-16 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. Chap. LXXXIV. 
 
 made any progress in his Equity studies, and all accounts re- 
 present him to have turned out a most execrably bad Equity 
 Judge. "We find constant complaints of him, even amidst com- 
 pliments to Clarendon his predecessor, and Shaftesbury who 
 succeeded him — who, notwithstanding their utter ignorance of 
 equitable and legal principles, contrived, by representing the 
 part more skilfully, to delude many into an opinion of their 
 sufficiency. 
 
 On the first day of Michaelmas temi he vent in grand pro- 
 cession, attended by the Judges and King's Counsel in coaches, 
 from Serjeants' Inn to Westminster Hall; and " soe soone as 
 he came to his place in the midst of the Court of Chancery, 
 standing, tooke the oathe of the office of Lord Keeper of the 
 Great Seale of England, the booke being held by the oldest 
 Master of the Chancery, in the absence of the Master of the 
 Rolls, being sick, who, had he been present, ought to have 
 held it." s 
 
 The high expectation entertained by some from seeing an 
 experienced lawyer appointed to this great judicial office was 
 immediately disappointed. He departed from the discreet 
 practice of Lord Clarendon, always to have Judges and Masters 
 in Chancery on the Eench with him to assist him ; and, though 
 very desirous to do what was right, he gave universal dissatis- 
 faction to the parties, to the profession, and to the public. 
 Burnet says, that, "as Chief Jusl ice of the Common Pleas he 
 was in great esteem, which ho did not long maintain after his 
 advancement. His study and practice lay so entirely in the 
 common law, that he never seemed to apprehend what Equity 
 was : nor had he a head made for the business of such a 
 Court." l But of all the writers who fleered at him, Roger 
 North gives us the liveliest picture of the Lord Keeper himself 
 and those about him. " He had been a celebrated lawyer, and 
 sat with high esteem m the place of Lord Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas. The removing him from thence to the Chan- 
 cery did not at all contribute any increase to his fame, but 
 rather the contrary, for he was timorous to an impotence, and 
 that not mended by his great age. He laboured very much to 
 please every body, and that is a temper of ill consequence in a 
 Judge. It was observed of him, that if a case admitted of 
 divers doubts, which the lawyers call points, he would never 
 give all on one side, but either party should have somewhat 
 to go away with. And in his time the Court of Chancery run 
 
 6 Cr. Off. Mia. 1667. Burnet, i. 253. 
 
A.D. 1667. HIS CONDUCT TO LORD CLARENDON. 147 
 
 ont of order into delays and endless motions in causes, so that 
 it was like a field overgrown with briars. And what was 
 worst of all, his family was very ill qualified for that place ; 
 his lady being a most violent intriguess in business, and his 
 sons kept no good decorum whilst they practised under him ; 
 and he had not a vigour of mind and strength to coerce the 
 cause of so much disorder in his family." u 
 
 The printed Reports of his decisions in Chancery are so 
 scanty, that the perusal of them does not enable us to form 
 any opinion of him as an Equity Judge. The points to be 
 found there are of small importance, and seem generally to 
 have been properly ruled. x But so little progress had Equity 
 then made as a science, that the Lord Keeper having on one 
 occasion called in the three chiefs to assist him, and Chief 
 Justice Key ling having quoted the decision of a former Chan- 
 cellor, supposed to be in point, Chief Justice Vaughan, a very 
 accomplished lawyer, thus broke out: "I wonder to hear of 
 citing precedents in matter of equity ; for if there be equity 
 in a case, that equity is an universal truth ; and there can be 
 no precedent in it. So that in any precedent that can be pro- 
 duced, if it be the same with this case, the reason is the same 
 in itself; and if the precedent be not the same case with this, 
 it is not to be cited, being not to that purpose." y 
 
 We must now view him in his political capacity. Never 
 being created a Peer, his only duty in the House of Lords was 
 to put the question, and to address the two Houses in explana- 
 tion of the royal will on the assembling of parliament. His 
 first essay in this line was at the opening of the session which 
 began on the 10th of October, 1667. His address was short 
 and becoming ; and he did not refer to the dismissal of his pre- 
 decessor, unless, perhaps, in these general terms : " His Ma- 
 jesty hath reason to believe, that some disaffected persons have 
 spread abroad discourses and rumours reflecting on the govern- 
 ment. It is an easy thing to take exceptions : Cum neque culpam 
 humana infirmitas, neque calumniam regnandi diffiadtas evitat." But 
 he had to read the joint address of both Houses to the King ; 
 " thanking his Majesty for having been pleased to displace the 
 
 n Life of Lord Keeper, i. 168. In another have a competent share, made work for regis- 
 
 place he says, " The Lord Bridgeman, who ters, solicitors, and counsel, who dressed up 
 
 was a very good common law judge, made a causes to fit his humour," ii. 74. — See also 
 
 very bad Chancellor. For his timidous man- Granger, iii. 361. Life of James II. vol. i 
 
 ner of creating and judging abundance of 429. 
 
 points, some on one side and some on another, * Cases in Chancery, Tart I. Mod. L 
 
 and if possible contriving that each shouii F A. D. 1670. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN. Chap. LXXXIV. 
 
 late Lord Chancellor, and remove him from the exercise of 
 public trust and employment in the affairs of state." 2 He 
 appears to have behaved with generosity to his former patron 
 and friend, when all the world was abandoning him ; and, at 
 the risk of soon losing the Great Seal, to have done what lay in 
 his power to stop the impeachment, and to prevent the neces- 
 a.d. 1667— sit}' for flight. He was the messenger who carried to 
 1671 the King the last letter which Clarendon wrote to 
 
 him in England, denying his privity with the marriage be- 
 tween the Duke of Richmond and " La belle Stuart ;" and if he 
 at last counselled him to withdraw, according to the strong 
 hint which. Charles then so insultingly gave, — Clarendon's own 
 family, and most attached friends, now joined in the same ad- 
 vice. 3 Whatever influence the new Lord Keeper had, was 
 used to make the bill of pains and penalties, which the 
 King and the .Court party insisted on, operate with as little 
 prejudice as possible to Clarendon and his property ; and he 
 behaved with kindness to the sons and dependents of the 
 banished Earl. 
 
 There was no one else on whom the courtiers could agree 
 to confer the office of Lord Keeper. Meanwhile Bridgeman 
 affixed the Great Seal to grants to Lad}' Castlemaine and others 
 which Clarendon had stopped, and proved for a long time 
 entirely submissive to them in all things. He was, therefore, 
 allowed to hold it till the measures of the Cabal were so 
 atrocious, and the orders imposed upon him were so revolting, 
 that even he scrupled, and protested, and resisted, — when it 
 was snatched from him by the most daring and profligate of 
 mankind. Bridgeman interfered with the general policy of the 
 government less than any of his predecessors had ever done. 
 If he can claim no meiit for proposing or furthering the 
 Triple Alliance, he was not implicated in the secret treaty 
 with France for violating it, nor in the conspiracy deli- 
 berately formed to overturn the religion and the liberties of 
 the country. 
 
 There are preserved to us speeches which he made at the 
 opening of parliament in October 1669, February 1670, and 
 October 1671 ; but they merely refer, in general terms, to the 
 .state of public affairs, and press for a supply to pay the King's 
 vl ebts. 
 
 He was in office w T hen the Triple Alliance was negotiated, 
 and he must have put the Great Seal to that treaty, b but the 
 
 * 4 ParL Hist. 366. * Ante, p. 116. b See Sir W. Temple's Letters. 
 
A.D. 1672. "THE DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE." 149 
 
 only two public measures with which his name has been con- 
 nected are, "the Declaration of Indulgence," and "the 
 Shutting up of the Exchequer :" and these led to his fall. 
 
 Clifford, who had planned the re-establishment of Popery, 
 and the King's open profession of that religion, — in 
 February, 1672, proposed in Council that a royal 
 Declaration should be published " for indulgence to tender 
 consciences, suspending by the supreme power in ecclesias- 
 tical matters inherent in the Crown, and recognised by 
 several acts of parliament, ail manner of penal laws in matters 
 ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of non-conformists or re- 
 cusants." As the Great Seal must be affixed to such a Decla- 
 ration to give it any colour of validity, the Lord Keeper had 
 been summoned to attend this Council. A most bigoted Pro- 
 testant, he had been always eager for putting in force the 
 penal laws against the Catholics, and his religion now warped 
 his opinion upon constitutional law ; for though he had often 
 stood up for the King's dispensing power, — when he saw that 
 such a use was to be made of it, he expressed great doubts 
 whether it existed, and positively refused, without further 
 consideration, to allow the Declaration to pass the Great Seal. 
 As it must have caused great alarm directly to dismiss him 
 from his office on the ground (as it would be said) that he had 
 shown himself the champion of the Church of England and of 
 the Protestant faith, Clifford proposed a proviso which he 
 hoped might be soon got rid of, or not enforced, " that the 
 benefit of public worship should not be extended to the 
 Catholics, who, to avoid molestation, must confine their reli- 
 gious assemblies to private houses." d 
 
 The Lord Keeper agreed to this compromise, but at the 
 same time expressed his determination never to consent to the 
 legalising of the idolatry and will-worship of the Church of 
 Borne in this Protestant land. The Declaration came out, 
 and he retained his office for some months, though thence- 
 forth, an object of suspicion and dislike to the existing adminis- 
 tration. 6 
 
 c He here imitated the example of a greater to the Declaration, and was for that reason 
 
 man, Lord Clarendon, who, though a stickler dismissed from his office ; whereas the Decla- 
 
 for the dispensing power, flatly denied it ration issued in March, and he held the Great 
 
 when it was to be exercised in favour of Seal till Xovember. A canons account of 
 
 liberty of conscience. — Ante, p. 92. this transaction is to be found in " A Letter 
 
 d 4 Pari. Hist. 515. from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the 
 
 e Burnet and others have said that the Country," which was written by Locke under 
 
 Lord Keeper refused to affix the Great Seal the directions of Shaftesbury, and in which it 
 
150 LORD KEEPER BRIDGEMAN". Chap. LXXXIV, 
 
 The proximate cause of his removal was his refusal, when 
 Bitting as a Judge in the Court of Chancery, to grant injunc- 
 tions which were applied for in consequence of the most frau- 
 dulent and foolish act that any government ever resorted to. 
 The object was to enable the King to carry on a war against 
 Holland, in violation of the Triple Alliance, and. in conjunction 
 with Louis XIV., to crush the liberties of the United Pro- 
 vinces, preparatory to the introduction of absolutism and Bo- 
 manism into England. Large sums had been advanced by the 
 bankers of London, for the repayment of which orders on the 
 Exchequer had been issued, and the King having solemnly 
 promised " that he would not, on any occasion whatever, 
 suffer any interruption of payment of these orders of the Ex- 
 chequer," f — the honest men and profound political economists 
 now at the head of affairs resolved that the Exchequer should 
 be suddenly shut, and that no pa} 7 ment should be made to any 
 public creditor for a twelvemonth. The approach of the 
 Dutch fleet to Gravesend, or the breaking out of the Great 
 Plague, hardly produced a greater sensation in the city. An 
 unexampled shock was given to commercial credit ; trade 
 was paralysed ; many mercantile houses became bankrupt ; 
 numbers of annuitants, widows, and orphans were reduced 
 to a state of the lowest distress, — and though, by this con- 
 trivance, a sum of 1,300,0007. was, in the first instance, placed 
 at the disposal of the ministers, the regular revenue failed, 
 and the finances were in a state of greater disorder than 
 ever. 
 
 The bankers, to whom the large payments were due, were 
 the first victims. The money which they had advanced to 
 the government at eight or ten per cent., they had borrowed at 
 six or seven from their customers, who, not receiving prin- 
 cipal or interest, brought actions against them, and threatened 
 them with statutes of bankruptcy. When they stated the 
 hardship of their case to Shaftesbury, who had the chief ma- 
 nagement of affairs at the Treasury board, he, vaguely recol- 
 lecting something he had heard or read when a student in the 
 Inns of Court about Injunctions, said, " Why do you not apply 
 to the Lord Keeper for an injunction against all such proceed- 
 ings, to which you must be clearly entitled, as your inability 
 to pay your customers proceeds entirely from an act of the 
 King, resorted to fur the safety of the state ? " They cora- 
 ls safd that it was " the vanity of the Lord named in the Declaration. — See 4 Pari. Hist 
 Keeper" which caused the Catholics to be Apr- No. v. p. xsxviii. f 14 St. Tr. 1. 
 
A.D. 1672. SHUTTING UP OF THE EXCHEQUER. 151 
 
 inunicated this advice to their solicitors and counsel, who 
 never had dreamed of such an expedient. But bills were im- 
 mediately filed, and injunctions were moved for. The Loid 
 Keeper was prepared for these motions by an intimation from 
 Shaftesbury and his other colleagues, that it was indispen- 
 sably necessary that all actions and proceedings against the 
 bankers in consequence of the shutting of the Exchequer 
 should be stopped. Nay, a message was brought to the per- 
 plexed Bridgeman from the King himself, that ' ' he deemed 
 himself bound in honour to shelter the bankers whose money 
 lie had had locked up in the Exchequer from the pursuit of 
 their creditors." 
 
 But when the application was made in open Court, no 
 principle or precedent could be cited to support it, although 
 a feeble attempt was made on the ground that the fulfilment 
 of the contract had been prevented by vis major or casus for- 
 tuitas, 5 — while the opposite counsel argued conclusively that 
 the debt being admitted, and there being no legal defence, 
 the inability of the debtor to pay could constitute no equity in 
 his favour ; that the rights of the creditor could not be preju- 
 diced by the fraud or force of a third party ; and that the 
 shutting up of the Exchequer, whatever might be its cha- 
 racter, was entirely res inter alios acta. 
 
 The case was so clear to the bar and the bystanders, as well 
 as to the Lord Keeper himself, that he durst not grant the in- 
 junction ; but in hopes to find out some by-point upon which 
 he might intimate an opinion for the bankers, and so soften 
 their disappointment, he said he should take the papers home 
 with him, and pronounce judgment another day. 
 
 Shaftesbury, who was the real actor, was not a man so to be 
 dealt with. He resolved that he would grasp the Great Seal, 
 and grant the injunctions himself. He posted off to the King, 
 swore that Bridgeman was an old dotard, quite unequal to 
 his situation ; declared that he (Shaftesbury) was himself 
 much fitter for it ; pointed out how the recent example proved 
 the little use of black letter learning in teaching what is just 
 and equitable ; and vowed that if he were made Chancellor the 
 appointment would greatly redound to the King's ease and the 
 public welfare. Charles, at first, thought that Shaftesbury 
 was in jest, and received the proposal with a laugh ; but 
 Buckingham, Arlington, and Clifford were brought to support 
 it, . — probably from the hope that a colleague, whom they 
 
 S See Reports in Chanoery, L 24. 
 
152 LORD J.EEPER BRIDGEMAX. Chap. LXXXIV 
 
 began to find very troublesome, might ruin bis credit by such 
 a freak, and at any rate would find plenty to occupy him with- 
 out interfering with their departments. Tbe King acquiesced, 
 and Secretary Coventry, without any thing having been done to 
 prepare the Lord Keeper for sucb a blow, was sent for the 
 Great Seal, and demanded it from him, — while he was think- 
 ing of the least unpalatable terms in which he might refuse 
 the injunction, and was hesitating whether he could with any 
 decency refuse to punish the bankers with the costs of the ap- 
 plication. Charles kept the Great Seal in his own custody one 
 night, and next morning it was delivered to Shaftesbury with 
 the title of Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Burnet, in relating this event, says that Lord Keeper 
 Bridgeman '* had lost all credit at Court, with the reputation 
 he had formerly acquired, and that they had some time been 
 seeking an occasion to get rid of him." h 
 
 In addition to the refusal of the injunctions, Eoger North 
 assigns another direct cause of his removal, of which I no 
 where else find any trace, — his refusal to seal " a commission 
 for martial law," observing, " he was pressed, but proved 
 restive on both points. For the sake of his family, that ga- 
 thered . like a snow-ball while he had the Seal, he would not 
 have formalised with any tolerable compliances : but these 
 impositions were too rank for him to comport with." ' 
 
 After his fall he lived in entire seclusion at his 
 ' villa at Teddington, and died there, 25th June, 1674. 
 
 Lord Chancellor Nottingham, referring to one of his 
 decisions, said,—" It is clue to the memory of so great a 
 man, whenever we speak of him, to mention him with 
 reverence and with veneration for his learning and in- 
 tegrity ;" and Lord Ellenborough pronounces him " a most 
 eminent Judge, distinguished by the profundity of his learn- 
 ing and the extent of his industry." But greatness will only 
 be attributed to him by lawyers : he knew nothing beyond 
 his own art ; in only one department of that was he distin- 
 guished, — and such distinction, with opportunity, may be 
 attained by any man of ordinary intellect and extraordinary 
 industry. He is very much to be honoured for his steady 
 and consistent adherence to his royalist principles, but he has 
 received unmerited praise for having denied the dispensing 
 power, and for having favoured toleration, — seeing that rather 
 than give up his office he put the Great Seal to the De- 
 
 h Own Times, i. 193, 535. i Exaraen, 38. 
 
A.D. 1674. HIS DESCENDANTS. 15o 
 
 claration suspei .ding the penal laws when he had got the Ca- 
 tholics excluded from it, — and that he fully partook of the 
 hcrror felt by Clarendon, his patron, against all who were not 
 high Protestant Episcopalians. 
 
 He is said to have favoured men of learning. Bishop 
 Cumberland, author of the De Legibus Natures, was his 
 chaplain, and received from him the living of All-hallows, 
 Stamford. 
 
 He was twice married, — first to Judith, daughter and 
 heiress of John Kynaston, Esq., of Morton, in the county of 
 Salop ; and secondly, to Dorothy, daughter of Dr. Saunders, 
 Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, by both of whom he left 
 issue. Sir Henry Bridgeraan, the fifth Baronet, (whose 
 mother was the daughter and heiress of Thomas the last Earl 
 of Bradford, of the family of Newport,) was created Baron 
 Bradford by George III. in the year 1794; and in 1815 his 
 son was raised to the Earldom of Bradford, now enjoyed 
 by the lineal representative in the male line of the Lord 
 Keeper. k 
 
 * Grandeur of the Law, 97. 
 
154 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXV. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE 
 
 RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. 
 
 We pass at once from a mere lawyer, — " leguleius quidam 
 cautus et acutus, prasco actionum, cantor formula- 
 ram, auceps syllabarum," — to a Chancellor who did 
 not affect to have even a smattering of law, but who pos- 
 sessed brilliant accomplishments as well as talents, and who, 
 as a statesman, is one of the most extraordinary characters 
 in English history. 
 
 " For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
 Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; 
 Restless, unfix*d in principles and place; 
 In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace : 
 A daring pilot in extremity, 
 
 Pleas'd with the danger when the waves ran high, 
 He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit, 
 Would steer too near the sands to boast his wit. 
 In friendship false, implacable in hate, 
 Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state. 
 Then seiz"d with fear, yet still affecting fame, 
 Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name." 
 
 From the birth and boyish position of Anthony Ashley 
 Cooper, so enterprising, so energetic, so aspiring, so reckless, 
 it might have been expected that he would have quietly 
 devoted himself to dogs and horses, and that if his breast 
 was ever fired by ambition, it would only have been to 
 be High Sheriff of the county or Chairman of Quarter Ses- 
 sions. While a schoolboy he was a Baronet in possession 
 of large landed estates, yielding him a revenue of 8000/. 
 a year. 
 
 The subject of this memoir was the son of Sir John Cooper, 
 of Kockbome, in Hampshire, who was created a baronet by 
 James I., and Anne Ashley, only daughter and heiress of Sir 
 Anthony Ashley, of Winibome St. Giles, in the county of 
 Dorset, who had been Clerk of the Council in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, and had acted as secretary to the council of war in 
 
A.D. 1621-38. HIS EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE. 155 
 
 the expedition against Cadiz, in 1596. m He was bom at Wim- 
 borne St. Giles, July 22, 1621. His grandfather died in 1627, 
 and his father in 1631, when the title, with the fortunes of 
 both families, descended upon him. 
 
 His early education was intrusted to Mr. Guerdean, a fellow 
 of Queen's College, Cambridge, selected by Sir Anthony for 
 strictness of principle and severity of temper, — the old gen- 
 tleman often saying, " that youth could not have too deep a 
 dye of religion, for business and conversation in the world 
 would wear it to a just moderation." n It cannot be objected 
 that the pupil from this early discipline showed himself over 
 strait-laced and stiff. 
 
 It is related that the youth, while only thirteen years of 
 age, showed the energy of his character by defeating a scheme 
 of his trustees to deprive him of a large part of his property. 
 Being a ward of the Crown, he went alone to Noy the Attor- 
 ney-General, and acquainted him with the proceedings, — 
 observing that he had no one to depend upon but him, who 
 had been the friend of his grandfather. Noy, pleased with liis 
 spirit, zealously undertook his cause in the Court of Wards, 
 and succeeded for him, without taking any fees. ° 
 
 In 1636 he was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, where 
 he early distinguished himself by refusing to submit to some 
 traditionary tricks attempted to be put upon him as a fresh- 
 man, and by stirring up a rebellion against the seniors. I find 
 nothing more recorded of his academical life, except that his 
 wit, affability, and courage gained him the good- will of the 
 University. He improved himself more by conversation than 
 by study, and though not grossly deficient in acquirements 
 becoming a gentleman, he might well have been designated 
 " acerrimi ingenii — paucarum literarum." 
 
 Having remained about two years at Oxford, — to finish his 
 education he was transferred to Lincoln's Inn, where he re- 
 mained for a short time, — associating with other young men 
 of fortune like himself, — frequenting the theatres and fencing 
 schools, — but without any thought of being called to the bar 
 or studying the law. 
 
 \Yhile only eighteen he married a young lady of great 
 beauty and accomplishments, a daughter of Lord Keeper 
 Coventry. After his marriage he lived with his father-in-law; 
 and now in a legal atmosphere, he must have imbibed the few 
 loose notions of jurisprudence which he ever possessed. But 
 
 m Arch. xxii. 112. n Life by Martyn, 36. ° Life, 38. 
 
156 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV. 
 
 instead of listening to the coifed sages of the law who fre- 
 quented Durham House, he delighted himself, when acconr 
 panying the family into Worcestershire, to act the part of a 
 fortune-teller, — which he did with brilliant reputation, by the 
 assistance of a servant who got into all the love stories of the 
 houses which he visited. But such a mixture of contradictions 
 was he, that according to Bishop Burnet, he himself " had the 
 dotage of astrology in him to a high degree," and he declared, 
 ; ' that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the 
 whole series of his life." 
 
 In one of these visits to the country he was invited to a 
 public dinner given by the Bailiffs of Tewkesbury. Sir Harry 
 Spiller, " a vain man, that despised all whom he thought his 
 inferiors," thought fit to put many affronts on the Bailiffs and 
 their entertainment, in the presence of the first gentlemen of 
 the county, before whom they were desirous of appearing to 
 the best advantage. Young Sir Anthony rose in defence of 
 the corporation, and retorted on the assailant his rough 
 raillery with such wit and success as to gain the victory, and 
 completely to silence him. 
 
 This occurrence had an important influence on Shaftesbury's 
 future destiny. The invasion of the Scots and the general 
 discontents rendering a parliament indispensable, after an ex- 
 periment of above eleven years' duration to rule by preroga- 
 tive, — a writ came down to elect members for Tewkesbury, 
 and the burgesses unanimously chose their champion as one 
 of their representatives, — in his absence, — without his know- 
 ledge,— and when he was only nineteen years of age. p 
 
 Before parliament met, his father-in-law, the Lord Keeper, 
 Jan 1840 died, and he was thenceforth his own master, or 
 rather the slave of his own passions and caprice. 
 
 He took his place in the House of Commons during the 
 a.t>. 1640— short parliament which met in April, 1640; but I 
 1642 - cannot find an account of any of his speeches, 
 
 although it seems impossible that he should have remained 
 silent during the three weeks which elapsed before the dis- 
 solution. It is said that he diligently attended the House 
 of Commons, and every day practised the useful lesson of 
 writing out a report of their proceedings. We cannot doubt 
 that he warmly supported the Court in the grand straggle 
 which was led on opposite sides by Hyde and Hampden, whe- 
 
 P The son of the Duke of Albemarle sat in parliament, after the Restoration, at the age 
 cf fifteen. 
 
A.L>. 1642-43. JOINS THE ROYAL STANDARD. 157 
 
 ther the supply demanded should be granted before the con- 
 sideration of grievances ? Till lie met with the affront about 
 the garrison of Weymouth, hereafter to be related, he was an 
 ardent friend of high prerogative. 
 
 For this very reason, probably, he had given dissatisfaction 
 to his constituents at Tewkesbury ; and it was now very 
 difficult for a man of such principles, in the universal rage 
 for reform, to find a seat. He stood for Downton, and was 
 beaten. He petitioned against the return, but the decision 
 of the House of Commons was against him. q Thus he never 
 was a member of the Long Parliament till immediately before 
 the Restoration, when, — twenty years from its first assembling, 
 —it met for the last time under the name of the " Bump." 
 
 However, although, to his deep mortification, prevented 
 from defending Strafford and ship-money, out of parliament 
 he exerted himself to the utmost in support of the royal 
 cause. "When hostilities were about to commence he at- 
 tended the King to the north, and he was present at the 
 ceremony of erecting the royal standard at Nottingham. In 
 1643, after various conferences with the leading royalists at 
 Oxford, he was ordered to his house at Winibome St. Giles. 
 in the hope that he might get some of the towns in the 
 western counties which were held for the parliament to 
 declare for the King. He now declaimed with much elo 
 quence at public meetings on the tyranny of the parliament, 
 and the good intentions of Charles I. ; and he displayed such 
 boldness and address in the intrigues he carried on, that he 
 prevailed on the inhabitants of Weymouth to expel the par- 
 liamentary garrison, and to receive him as governor of the 
 town in the King's name. Poole, Dorchester, and other 
 places in that county were about to follow their A . D . i652— 
 example. But Prince Maurice, who held a superior 1643 - 
 command in the west, superseded him as governor of Wey- 
 mouth, refused to recognise the terms on which he had in- 
 duced it to come over to the Crown, and treated the young 
 baronet with marked disdain. Sir Anthony took a journey to 
 Oxford to lay his case before the King, and meeting with no 
 redress, " he w r as thereby so much disobliged that he quitted 
 the King's* party, and gave himself up body and soul to the 
 services of the parliament, vnth an implacable animosity 
 against the royal cause." r 
 
 1 Com. J.ourn. 10 Feb. 16-41. first change of party differs considerably from 
 
 1 Clare.adon. This account of Shaftesbury's that given in the Memoir of his Life by 
 
158 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chai. LXXXV, 
 
 L T pon tliis, as upon every subsequent change, however vio- 
 lent, — claiming the credit of being a perfectly consistent poli- 
 tician, and contending that the friends whom he abandoned 
 had left those principles to which he steadily adhered, — he 
 pretended that the aspect of public affairs had suddenly 
 changed, — and he now affirmed that all who had a true regard 
 for the monarchy ought to fight under the Earl of Essex. But 
 it must be related to his honour, that he was now governed by 
 a rule which he always afterwards rigidly observed, and which 
 went far to redeem him from the odium of his frequent ter- 
 giversations, — that he never betrayed the secrets of a party he 
 had left, or made harsh personal observations on the conduct 
 of his old friends ; — not only trying to keep up a familiar 
 private intercourse with them, but abstaining from vindictive 
 reflections upon them in his speeches or his writings. 
 
 Having travelled secretly from Oxford to London, he there 
 formally sent in his adhesion to the parliament. He 
 was received, as may be supposed, with great cor- 
 diality ; but a committee of the House of Commons being ap- 
 pointed to confer with him and to examine him, he absolutely 
 refused to make any discovery either as to persons or the ma- 
 nagement of affairs of what he had observed while he had been 
 on the King's side, saying, that the maxim ought to be acted 
 upon in public as well as private life, — " that there is a general 
 and tacit trust in conversation, whereby a man is obliged not 
 to report any thing to the speaker's prejudice, though no inti- 
 mation may be given of a desire not to have it spoken of again." B 
 
 The parliament was contented to receive him on his own 
 ternis ; and by an ordinance of the two Houses, on the 14th 
 of August, 1644, he was appointed one of the committee of 
 the western counties for governing the army. A military 
 district was assigned to him, and he was placed in the com- 
 
 Locke. I should have had no difficulty in sistency, was desirous that it should be sup- 
 preferring Locke to all other authority, had posed that he had been at the head of a 
 he been narrating from his own knowledge middle party between the King and the par- 
 and observation ; but during these events he liament ; whereas there is no doubt that, hi* 
 was a boy at school, and he did not form an tne language of Clarendon, " he gave himself 
 acquaintance with Shaftesbury till the year up body and soul," first to the one, and then 
 1666. Then, struck by his conversation, and to the other. The accurate Whitelock says, 
 fascinated by his kindness, he was blind to " he professed his great affection for the par- 
 tus vices, and gave implicit credit to all he liament, and his enmity to the King's party, 
 neard from a man of such distinction. The frmi whom he had revolted ; and was now 
 memoir, and the "Letter from a Person of in great favour and trust with the parlia- 
 Quality," were both written at Shaftesbury's ment."' 
 
 request, and on his representations. The 8 Life, 142. L-cke's Memoir, Works, is. 
 
 converted patriot, in vindication of his con- 270. 
 
A.I). 1644-48. GOES OYER TO THE PARLIAMENT. 169 
 
 mand of a brigade consisting of Colonel Popham's and Co- 
 lonel Cooke's regiments. At the head of these, he marched to 
 Wareham, a royal garrison, which he resolved to take by 
 assault. Having carried one of the outworks, he drove the 
 enemy into the town ; and they, intimidated by this onset, sur- 
 rendered, upon the terms that 300 of them should serve the 
 parliament against the rebels in Ireland. 
 
 He next laid siege to Corfe Castle, which soon surrendered 
 at discretion ; and as a precaution against any attempt of the 
 royalists to retake it, he threw a considerable body of foot and 
 horse into the adjoining stronghold of Lulworth. Drawing 
 together a large force from the garrisons of Weymouth, Poole, 
 and Wareham, he marched to Abbotsbury, then a considerable 
 place on the sea-coast, and took it by storm, after a gallant 
 defence by Colonel Strangeways. 1 Having refreshed his men 
 in Dorchester, he successively attacked the remaining garri- 
 sons in that part of England, and reduced them to obedience 
 to the parliament. 
 
 He then marched to the relief of Taunton, where the gal- 
 lant Blake (afterwards so illustrious as an admiral) A D 1644 „ 
 was the governor, and his ammunition and provisions 1646 - 
 being exhausted, Avas on the point of capitulating. Shaftes 
 bury first routed an auxiliary force coming to the assistance 
 of the besiegers, and then their main body, and compelled 
 them to raise the siege. He wrote a flaming account of this ex- 
 ploit to the parliament, — taking greater credit to himself than 
 Cromwell in his despatch announcing his victory at Dunbar. 
 
 But he was suddenly satiated with military glory, and after 
 this brilliant campaign never again appeared in the field. 
 "Whether he retired from some affront, or from mere caprice, is 
 not certainly known." 
 
 There is a considerable obscurity as to the manner in which 
 he employed himself during the several years which followed, 
 while with envious eyes he saw Cromwell mounting; to 
 supreme power. To his unspeakable mortification he never 
 was a member of the Long Parliament, all his attempts to get 
 himself returned upon a vacancy being defeated from a 
 suspicion of his unsteady and dangerous character. Had he 
 succeeded in obtaining a seat, it is not at all improbable that 
 he might have prevented the ascendency of the Independents 
 
 * Vicars, Part IV. 67. arm ■ ; but this could not possibly be the 
 
 n Some have supposed that the " self- case, as he was not then in parliament, 
 denying ordinance" drove him from the 
 
160 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV. 
 
 and their Chief; for the Presbyterians, till " Pride's purge," 
 were a majority in the House, and they only wanted a bold 
 and resolute leader to have successfully opposed such crafty 
 schemes as "the self-denying ordinance" by which they were 
 crushed. 
 
 Some accounts state that in the year 1645 Sir Anthony 
 Ashley Cooper was High Sheriff of Norfolk ; but his name 
 does not appear in the list of High Sheriffs for that county, 
 and during this year the office was served by Sir Jacob Astley. 
 The following year he certainly was appointed High Sheriff of 
 Wiltshire, under an ordinance which gave him leave to reside 
 in Dorsetshire. He is said at this time to have distinguished 
 himself as an active magistrate — exciting the admiration of 
 the country people by his eloquence at sessions, — quarter and 
 petty. 
 
 When he occasionally came to London he associated him- 
 self chiefly with the Presbyterian leaders ; and he 
 strongly dissuaded Hollis from the indiscreet move 
 which terminated in Cromwell escaping to the army and prac- 
 tically assuming supreme power. It is said that the Lord 
 General some time after meeting him, said to him jeeringly, 
 " I amholden to you for your kindness to me ; for you, I hear, 
 were for letting me go without punishment ; but your friend, 
 God be thanked ! was not wise enough to take your advice." x 
 In the beginning of 1652 he became a member of the famous 
 Jan. n, commission for the reform of the Law; but he soon 
 1652. found this very dull work ; and being shut out from 
 all military and civil distinction, he became highly discon- 
 tented, and muttered so loud against the reigning authorities, 
 that he was actually taken up as a delinquent ; but nothing 
 could be proved against him except some intemperate 
 speeches, and it was resolved by the House " that Sir An- 
 thony Ashley Cooper be pardoned of all delinquency." y 
 
 After the expulsion of the Long Parliament he intrigued 
 with Cromwell, who was anxious to secure him, and held out 
 to him the prospect of being appointed Lord Keeper of the 
 Great Seal, — an office for which he was quite as fit as Lisle or 
 Fiennes, who actually held it. 
 
 Shaftesbury at this moment saw no other course than to 
 
 ad i6-3 t em P or i se with Oliver. He therefore, in his own 
 
 country, pretended to have received " the new light," 
 
 after the fashion of the Independents ; and when Barebones'' 
 
 x Life, 159. y Com. Journ. March 17. 1652. 
 
A.D. 1654. RETURNED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 161 
 
 Parliament was to be called, he contrived to get his name in- 
 cluded in the list of " godly men " returned by the county of 
 Wilts to the Council of State, from whom a selection was to 
 be made of fit representatives of the peopjle in the legislature. 
 Cromwell actually appointed him one of this motley assembly. 
 
 Sir Anthony found himself in strange company ; but, on the 
 meeting of the House, he joined zealously in " seeking the 
 Lord," along with the great body of fanatics of which it was 
 composed. His views on the Great Seal were considerably 
 dashed by the bill " for the immediate and total abolition of 
 the Court of Chancery ;" which, after it had been read a second 
 time, he contrived to obstruct in the committee, by suggesting 
 difficulties as to the determination of existing suits, and as to 
 the enforcement of certain important rights, for which the 
 courts of common law afforded no remedy. 
 
 Hence it has been said that he opposed Cromwell in this 
 parliament, — which is supposed to be further proved by his 
 having powerfully supported the motion made on the 1 2th of 
 December, "that the sitting of the parliament any longer 
 would not be for the good of the Commonwealth." But I 
 think it is probable that the good understanding between these 
 two extraordinary men still subsisted ; and it is quite certain 
 that the motion referred to was highly agreeable to Cromwell, 
 who wished to get rid of the parliament immediately, and had 
 '* the Instrument of Government " all prepared and ready, by 
 which, as soon as a dissolution took place, he was to be de- 
 clared Lord Protector. 
 
 But there was a decided estrangement between them soon 
 after ; probably arising from the promise about the Great Seal 
 not being fulfilled, — Cromwell's intuitive insight into character 
 telling him that Shaftesbury was not to be trusted. 
 
 "When the Protector's second parliament was called, on the 
 excellent model so much praised by Lord Clarendon lg54 
 
 and the basis of Lord Grey's Reform Bill, Shaftes- 
 bury was one of the ten members returned for the county of 
 Wilts ; and, after a keen contest, he was at the head of the poll. 2 
 
 When the parliament met, he strongly co-operated with the 
 party who were for beginning to inquire into the validity of 
 " the Instrument of Government;" and the motion being made, 
 " that the House do approve ihat the government be in one 
 single person and a parliament," he supported the amendment, 
 
 * He was likewise returned to this parliament by Tewkesbury and by Poole — but elected 
 tc serve for his native county 
 
 VOL. IV. M 
 
162 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV. 
 
 " that the Instrument of Government be examined, article by 
 article, in a committee of the whole House." After a debate 
 of three days, the amendment was carried by a majority of 
 141 to 136. a 
 
 This made the Protector resolve by a strong hand to exclude 
 all such refractory spirits as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper ; and 
 a.d. 1654— after sending for the Commons to Whitehall, and 
 1656. giving them a lecture, they found on their return a 
 
 military guard at their door, who would allow no one to entei 
 without signing the following declaration : — 
 
 " I do hereby freely promise and engage to be true and faithful to the 
 Lord Protector and the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ire- 
 land ; and shall not, according to the tenor of the indenture whereby I 
 am returned to serve in this present parliament, propose or give my 
 consent to alter the government as it is settled in one person and a par- 
 liament." b 
 
 Shaftesbury absolutely refused to sign the declaration. Thus 
 excluded, he intrigued actively against Cromwell, with the 
 members who had signed it; and such an opposition was 
 organised, that a dissolution took place within the live months 
 during which, by "the Instrument of Government," the par- 
 liament ought at %ll events to have been continued. 
 
 The Protector finding his opponent so troublesome, soon 
 after made a bold attempt to gain him over by appointing him 
 a member of " the Council of State," with promises of further 
 advancement. This gracious demeanour roused in the bosom 
 of Sir Anthony the ambitious project of forming an alliance 
 with the Protectoral house, and, having been some time a 
 widower, he actually demanded in marriage " the musical 
 glib-tongued Lady Mary," c afterwards united to Lord Faucon- 
 berg. Probably on account of his dissolute morals, d he met 
 with a flat refusal. Thereupon he finally broke with Oliver, 
 and became a partisan of the banished royal family. 6 When 
 he had only twice or thrice sat in the Council of State, he sent 
 in his resignation, alleging that "the government by one 
 person was against his conscience." Cromwell complained 
 
 a 3 Pari. Hist. 1445. Mary to her brother Henry.— Carlyle'sCrom- 
 
 b 5 Pari. Hist. 1454. well, iii. 181. 
 
 c Ludlow. e This anecdote has been very lately dis- 
 
 d At this very time the match which covered from a suppressed passage of Ludr 
 
 actually took place between Cromwell's low's Memoirs, in the handwriting of Locke, 
 
 youngest daughter, Lady Fanny, and Lord copied by him for his Life of the Earl cf 
 
 Pach, had nearly been broken off by a re- Shaftesbury, preserved among the MSS. of 
 
 port to his disadvantage. See an extremely Lord Lovelace. See Carlyle's Cromwell, iii 
 
 interesting letter on the subject from Lsdy 183. 
 
A.D. 1659. INTRIGUES AGAINST CROMWELL'S GOVERNMENT. 163 
 
 that " of all the political characters he had met with, the most 
 difficult to manage was Marcus Tullius Cicero, — the little man 
 with three names." i 
 
 When the Protector's third and last parliament was called, 
 in 1656, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was again at the head of 
 the poll for the county of Wilts ; but all that he was permitted 
 to do, as a member, was on the first day of the session to hear 
 a sermon in the Abbey Church, and to be present in the 
 Painted Chamber when Oliver in royal state delivered his 
 speech explaining the causes of the summons. No member 
 was allowed to enter the House of Commons without a certi- 
 ficate of approbation from the Council of State, which was 
 peremptorily withheld from him, on the pretence of some 
 former acts of delinquency. Thus he took no part in the dis- 
 cussions about offering the Crown to Cromwell ; but he was 
 secretly leagued with the republicans, and without doing any 
 act to render himself liable to be tried before " a high court of 
 justice," he keenly intrigued against the government. 
 
 Bishop Burnet, in contradiction to all other authorities, says 
 that Shaftesbury advised Cromwell " to take the Kingship," — 
 although with a secret design to destroy him. But to render 
 this stoiy incredible, it is enough to observe that Shaftesbury 
 remained excluded from the House of Commons, and that he 
 was not one of the new Peers ; whereas his aid would have 
 been eagerly courted in either House. This is as little to be 
 believed as another story Burnet tells us, that " Cromwell 
 offered to make Shaftesbury King." The truth is, that when 
 in subsequent times Shaftesbury became acquainted with tlm 
 good Bishop, he took undue advantage of his credulity, and 
 mystified him exceedingly. 2 Shaftesbury certainly continued 
 in opposition to the government, professing republican prin- 
 ciples, till Oliver's death. 
 
 On Eichard's accession he was again returned to the House 
 of Commons for Wiltshire, although the old system _ 
 of representation was revived, each county sending 
 only two members ; but Sir William St. John had now the 
 greatest number of votes. Sir Anthony did not scruple to take 
 the oaths to the new Lord Protector, and solemnly to abjure 
 the family of Stuart ; but he had the penetration speedily to 
 discover that Eichard's government could not stand, and that 
 to put an end to the general discontent, the old dynasty would 
 
 f Double Christian or surnames were then almost unknown in England. 
 
 8 Burnet, i. 133. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV. 
 
 ere long be restored. He therefore left the republicans, and 
 intrigued with the royalists. He used in after times to take 
 to himself almost the whole merit of the Eestoration, repre- 
 senting Monk as merely his tool ; and in the preamble to his 
 patent of Peerage, he introduced a statement that M this happy 
 event was chiefly brought about by the efforts of our right 
 trusty and well beloved Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper." But he 
 really was of considerable use, by embarrassing the govern- 
 ment of Richard, — by rendering a dissolution of parliament 
 necessary, — by successively bringing into discredit the Rump 
 and the Council of Officers, — and by thickening the general 
 confusion, which made all men turn their eyes to the exiled 
 King. There is preserved to us a full report of his speech in 
 Richard's House of Commons, in the only important debate 
 which took place while it sat, — the question being, — " Whe- 
 ther the other House, consisting of Oliver's Peers, should be 
 recognised ?" Having for some time inveighed bitterly against 
 them and their maker, he thus proceeded : 
 
 " I acknowledge, Mr. Speaker, the mixture of the other House to be 
 like the composition of apothecaries, who mix something grateful to 
 the taste to qualify their bitter drugs, which else, perhaps, would be 
 immediately spit out. h So, Sir, his Highness of deplorable memory, to 
 countenance as well the want of quality as honesty in the rest, has 
 nominated some against whom there lies no other reproach but only that 
 nomination, — but not out of any respect to their quality, or regard to 
 their virtues, but out of regard to the no quality, the no virtues of the 
 rest ; which truly, Mr. Speaker, if he had not done, we could easily 
 have given a more express name to this other House than he hath been 
 pleased to do ; for we know a house designed for beggars and male- 
 factors is a House of Correction, and so termed by our law. But, Mr. 
 Speaker, setting those few persons aside who, I hope, think the nomina- 
 tion a disgrace, and their ever coming to sit there a much greater, can 
 we without indignation think of the rest ? He who is first in their 
 roll, 1 a condemned coward : one that out of -fear and baseness did once 
 what he could to betray our liberties, and now does the same for gain. 
 The second, k a person of as little sense as honesty, preferred for no other 
 reason but his no- worth — his no-conscience, — except cheating his father 
 of all he had was thought a virtue by him, who, by sad experience, we 
 find hath done as much for his mother — his country. The third,™ a 
 
 h — " Veluteipuerisabsinthlatetramedentes i Fiennes, who had been found guilty 
 
 Quum dare conantur, prius oras, pocula f cowardice in surrendering the Greai 
 
 circum, ,..,..„ ,. „ Seal, but afterwards restored and made 
 
 Contingunt mellis dulci navoque hquore. K 
 
 " Cosi all' egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi k Lisle, an officer and Keeper of the Great 
 
 Di soave licor gli orli del vaso ; g ea j 
 
 Succhi amari ingannato in tanto ei beve, m ' ^ f ^ Ki . Jud 
 
 E dall' inganno suo vita nceve." ' ° D 
 
A.D. U59. HIS SPEECH AGAINST OLIVER'S PEERS. 165 
 
 Cavalier, a Presbyterian, an Independent — for the Republic — for a Pro- 
 tector — for every thing — for nothing — but only that one thing — money. 
 It were endless, Sir, to run through thern all — to tell you of the Lord- 
 ships of 17?. a-year land of inheritance, of the farmer Lordships, dray- 
 men Lordships, cobbler Lordships, without one foot of land but what 
 the blood of Englishmen has purchased. These, Sir, are to be our rulers, 
 these the Judges of our lives and fortunes. To these we are to stand 
 bare, whilst their pageant Lordships deign to give us a conference on 
 their breeches. The House of Lords are the King's great hereditary 
 council ; they are the highest court of judicature ; they assist in making 
 new laws and abrogating old ; from amongst them we take our great 
 officers of state ; they are commonly our generals at land and our ad- 
 mirals at sea. In conclusion they are both of the essence and constitu- 
 tion of our old government ; and have besides the greatest and noblest 
 share in the administration. Now certainly, Sir, to judge according to 
 the dictates of reason, one would imagine some small faculties and en- 
 dowments to be necessary for discharging such a calling ; and such are 
 not usually acquired in shops and warehouses, nor found by following 
 the plough ; and what other academies most of their Lordships have 
 been bred in but their shops — what other arts they have been versed in 
 but those which more required good arms and good shoulders than good 
 heads, I think we are yet to be informed." a 
 
 The recognition was carried by a majority of 177 to 113; 
 but this attack hastened the dissolution, which terminated the 
 Protectorate, and put an end to the danger, once so formid- 
 able, of a Cromwell dynasty. 
 
 Shaftesbury's present policy was to assist in weakening each 
 party that successively gained an ascendency, till, hj some ex- 
 pression of the national will, the King. should be recalled. He 
 intrigued against the officers at Wallingford House till the 
 " Bump " was restored. He was then named a member of the 
 " Council of State ;" but, instead of taking his seat in it, he 
 did all that he could to introduce disunion and discord among 
 the members. Monk, calculating upon his influence, wrote to 
 him, soliciting that none of the officers of the army in Scotland 
 might be removed. He returned a favourable answer, and a 
 friendly correspondence was established between them. He 
 secretly encouraged a royalist rising in Dorsetshire, and in- 
 curred so much suspicion, that he was taken into custody, and 
 brought before the Council of State ; but they were obliged to 
 release him for want of evidence ; and the parliament on the 
 
 n See Old Parliamentary History, xxi. 297. founded; for, with very few exceptions, 
 
 Biog. Brit. : "Cooper." Life, 199. I have Cromwell's Peers were men of family, wealth 
 
 given only a short specimen of Sir Anthony's and reputation. See Carlyle's Cromwell, nj, 
 
 tirade, which is much more lively than well 339, 390. 
 
166 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV. 
 
 motion of a friend of his resolved, " that Sir Anthony Ashley 
 Cooper is clear from the accusation laid against him, and that 
 there is not any just ground of jealousy or imputation upon him." 
 
 But the majority of this assembly being for the desperate 
 experiment of a pure republic without any head, he en- 
 couraged them to cashier Lambert and Desborough, — which 
 led to another expulsion of the " Bump." He had next to 
 agitate against "the Committee of Safety," consisting of 
 officers who wished to restore " the Protectorate " under one 
 of themselves ; and he was mainly instrumental in upsetting 
 them, by heading the mob which met in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 — by leading them to the Eolls House in Chancery Lane, — 
 and by insisting that Lenthal should proceed to Westminster, 
 and again take the chair as Speaker. 
 
 The first act of the restored " Eump " was to appoint Sir 
 Anthony one of the Commissioners for the command 
 of the forces ; and he was enabled, by sudden orders 
 for changing their officers and moving their quarters, to 
 paralyse the power of Lambert. He next contrived to get 
 himself seated in the House of Commons as representative for 
 Downton, on the plea that he had been duly elected, and 
 ought to have been returned for that place in the year 1640, p 
 and he thenceforth mainly guided their proceedings with a 
 view to the Bestoration. Monk was advancing from the North, 
 and, notwithstanding his dissimulation, little doubt was enter- 
 tained as to his ultimate intentions. Shaftesbury wrote to him 
 to hasten his march, and assured him that he need apprehend 
 no resistance. Soon after Monk's arrival he instigated him to 
 make the declaration at Guildhall for " a free parliament," 
 which was as much as for the King's recall. Bonfires being 
 lighted, at which rumps were roasted, as Shaftesbury was re- 
 turning from the city with Colonel Popham, the mob sur- 
 rounded the carriage, and, knowing them to be members of the 
 House of Commons, loudly shouted, " Down with the Eump !" 
 Shaftesbury looked out, and, smiling, exclaimed, " AYhat, 
 gentlemen, not one good steak in the whole rump ?" The 
 mob were tickled with the jest, and some of them asserting 
 that he was " a brave boy," they accompanied him with ac- 
 clamations to his lodgings. 
 
 Shaftesbury warmly supported the act for putting an end 
 to the Long Parliament, and he was appointed one of the new 
 
 ° 3 Pari. Hist. 1571. petition, in September, 1645, and in May 
 
 P He had twice unsuccessfully renewed his 1659. See Com. Jour. Yth January, 1660 
 
A.D. 1660. COMMISSIONER TO CHARLES AT BREDA. 167 
 
 Council of State who were to carry on the government till the 
 Convention Parliament could assemble. 
 
 To this parliament he was again returned as member for the 
 county of Wilts ; and he had completely recovered his popula- 
 rity in the West, for he was now at the head of the poll. A\ hen 
 the House met, nothing remained but to arrange tie cere- 
 monial of the King's return. Sir John Grenville having de- 
 livered his Majesty's letter, Shaftesbury was appointed one of 
 a select committee to draw up the ansAver ; and he was chosen 
 one of the Commissioners of the Commons to repair to Breda 
 with the humble invitation and supplication of the parliament, 
 " that his Majesty would be pleased to return, and take the 
 government of the kingdom into his own hands." 
 
 In this journey he met with a dangerous accident. Being 
 overturned in his carriage on a Dutch road, he received a 
 wound between the ribs, which ulcerated many years after, 
 and was "opened when he was Chancellor. By way of com- 
 pensation,, this misfortune was the cause of his subsequent in- 
 troduction to the famous John Locke. For the present he 
 seemed to recover, and accompanying the other Commissioners, 
 he was able to throw himself at the King's feet. At this 
 first interview they little anticipated either the extraordinary 
 intimacy, or the extraordinary enmity, which was afterwards 
 to prevail between them. The King received Sir Anthony 
 very courteously, and told him " he was very sensible with 
 what zeal and application he had laboured for his resto- 
 ration." q 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXV1. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL HIS APPOINT- 
 MENT AS LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 Soon after the King's return, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, in 
 recompense of his services, was successively made a 
 Privy Councillor, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 Lord Lieutenant of the county of Dorset, Governor of tho 
 Isle of Wight, and Baron Ashley of \Yimbome St. Giles. 
 His conduct for the next seven years seems wholly mex- 
 
 i Life, 203. 
 
168 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVI. 
 
 plicable ; for he remained quite regular, and seemingly con- 
 tented. He had a little excitement by sitting as a judge on 
 the trial of the regicides, and joining in the sentence on some 
 of his old associates. Not being a member of the Long Par- 
 liament, he had not joined in this particular treason, but he 
 had often actually "levied war" against Charles I., and he 
 had on several occasions acted under the parliament as zea- 
 lously as Sir Harry Yane, for the purpose of keeping out 
 Charles II., so that his life had been forfeited to the law by 
 his co-operation with the prisoners. Still he thought it right 
 and decent that he should countenance the proceedings against 
 them. 
 
 These trials being over, he seemed to sink down into a 
 Treasury drudge. The office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 which he held, though a Peer, was not then of much import- 
 ance, and chiefly imposed the duty of attending to accounts. 
 He was not a member of the Committee of the Council to 
 whom, under Clarendon, the conduct of foreign affairs and 
 the management of the business in parliament were intrusted. 
 Strange to say, it was some years before he began seriously 
 to try to undermine Clarendon. The only solution is, that his 
 uncle, Southampton, the Lord Treasurer, who had become 
 very infirm, left to him almost the sole direction of the Ex- 
 chequer, with all its patronage, and, being strongly attached 
 to Clarendon, probably laboured to induce him to abstain from 
 any turbulent measures. Shaftesbury, along with Southampton, 
 gave some opposition to the " Corporation Act" and the " Act 
 a.d. 1660— of Uniformity;" and when Dunkirk had been sold, he 
 1667. expressed some disapprobation of that transaction. 
 
 He strongly supported the "Bill for Indulgence," which was 
 brought in to please the King, and was rejected by the hos- 
 tility of Clarendon. But during these years he did not take 
 by any means a prominent part in parliament, and he devoted 
 himself much to the duties of his office. He considered him- 
 self bound regularly to attend the King at Whitehall, to pay 
 court to Lady Castlemaine, and to cultivate with unwearied 
 assiduity his reputation for licentiousness — which he did so 
 successfully as even to rival that of his Master. 
 
 But he became tired of routine business and the life of a 
 mere roue ; and seeing with satisfaction the King's growing 
 dislike to Clarendon, he took every opportunity of widening 
 the breach between them. By the death of Lord Southampton, 
 in May, 1667, all restraint was removed, and he entered into 
 
A.D. 1668. ASSISTS IN BANISHING CLARENDON. 169 
 
 a strict alliance with Arlington and Clifford for Claren- 
 don's overthrow. The Treasury was put into commission 
 against Clarendon's strong opinion, and Shaftesbury contrived 
 to get himself named the first efficient Commissioner, still re- 
 taining his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. His in- 
 fluence from henceforth grew daily ; he managed to make all 
 the odium of the Dutch war fall upon the Chancellor, who had 
 from the beginning disapproved of it ; he aggravated the dis- 
 content of Cavaliers, Dissenters, and Roman Catholics, point- 
 ing out the Chancellor as the author of all their grievances ; 
 and he incited Lady Castlemaine to seek revenge upon the man 
 who, to be sure, had earnestly tried to prevail upon the Queen 
 to receive her as a lady of the bedchamber, but who had given 
 her mortal offence by forbidding his wife to visit her. Aftei 
 a hard struggle they spirited up the King to take the Great 
 Seal from Clarendon, and, as a temporary arrangement, to give 
 it to Sir Orlando Bridgeman. Shaftesbury probably had 
 thought of it for himself ever since it was promised to him by 
 Cromwell ; but neither the Court nor the public were yet at 
 all prepared to see such a successor of Sir Thomas More and 
 Lord Ellesmere, and his pretensions could not at present be 
 put forward. If either Sir Jeffrey Palmer or Sir Heneage 
 Finch, who with reputation filled the offices of Attorney and 
 Solicitor-General, had been appointed, there might have been 
 some difficulty in removing them ; but Bridgeman, from his 
 age, could not hold the Seal many years ; and from his want of 
 political importance might be set aside at pleasure. 
 
 The expectant Chancellor zealously co-operated with those 
 whose object it was, — not to bring Clarendon to the scaffold, 
 but to compel him to fly the country, — so that neither by the 
 interest of the Duke of York, nor a relenting of the King, he 
 might ever recover power. When the impeachment for high 
 treason came up from the Commons, with a requisition that 
 the accused should be immediately imprisoned, Shaftesbury 
 strenuously resisted the application on the ground that the 
 Commons had specified no particular act of treason ; but he 
 supported the bill by which Clarendon was banished for life, 
 and was rendered liable to instant execution if he ever again 
 set foot on English ground/ 
 
 The first act of the new administration (constituting an ex- 
 ception to the whole foreign policy of this reign) 
 was wise and virtuous — "the Triple Alliance," by 
 
 » 4 Pari. Hist. 373. 
 
170 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVL 
 
 which the free state of Holland was saved from the rapacity 
 of a tyrant openly aspiring to the dominion of Europe. Sir 
 "William Temple has all the merit of this deviation into rec- 
 titude ; and the surprise is, that those about the King per 
 mitted him, even for a time, to desert his cherished connection 
 with France, which brought them plenteously avowed pensions 
 and secret bribes. But the wax which sealed the treaty of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle was hardly cold before they began to plot 
 against it. Shaftesbury's apologists have contended that he 
 was always an enemy to the French Alliance ; but this is con- 
 trary to all contemporary testimony, as well as to all pro- 
 bability. I believe he did not take money from Louis, like his 
 colleagues, for he was always above pecuniary corruption ; but 
 there cannot be a doubt that, with a view to gratify the King, 
 and to consolidate his own power, he acceded to the con- 
 spiracy for crushing the liberties of Holland, and for estab- 
 lishing, with French assistance, Popery and arbitrary govern- 
 ment in England. 
 
 ° To compass this the triple bond he broke, 
 The pillars of the public safety shook, 
 And fitted England for a foreign yoke." 
 
 It has been suggested that, being now as keen a Protestant 
 as when he denounced the Popish plot, it was on the en- 
 lightened principles of toleration that he supported ' ' the 
 Declaration of Indulgence," to which he induced the Lord 
 Keeper Bridgeman to put the Great Seal. LTnluckily, at this 
 time he knew that Charles had been reconciled to Eome, and 
 that the Declaration was a measure preparatory to the King's 
 avowal of his conversion. He was too penetrating a genius 
 not to discover that religious toleration was highly expe- 
 dient ; but, for the sake of his ambition, he would have been 
 ready to prosecute Catholics or Protestants with indiscrimi- 
 nate zeal. 
 
 Although Clifford certainly was the first to propose the 
 shutting up of the Exchequer to the Council, there is great 
 reason to think that Shaftesbury, who had the sole manage- 
 ment of the finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord 
 Commissioner of the Treasury, originated the nefarious 
 scheme ; and, at all events, he supported and defended it. 
 
 By this conduct he rose into unbounded favour with the 
 King;, who, though he afterwards pronounced him 
 
 AD 1672. " ■ ■ 
 
 " the weakest and wickedest man of the age," now 
 professed the highest admiration not only of his agreeable 
 
A.D.1672. APPOINTED LORD CHANCELLOR. 171 
 
 manners, but of the boldness, energy, and originality of bis 
 genius as a statesman. In anticipation of greater advance- 
 ment, as a reward for bis services in closing tbe Exchequer, 
 be was created Earl of Shaftesbury. It is said that he was 
 offered tbe Treasurer's staff, but that, on account of the 
 national insolvency, for which be knew no real cure, be de- 
 clined it. 
 
 The Cabal was now in the zenith of its power. There 
 were considerable jealousies among the members of the admi- 
 nistration; but the energy of Shaftesbury prevailed, and he 
 was the mainspring of all its operations. His reputation was 
 not at all impaired by the general distress which followed the 
 shutting up of the Exchequer, — when be came forward with 
 bis remedy of stopping, by injunctions, all the suits against the 
 bankers, — whereby commercial credit was to be restored. 
 
 I have stated, in the Life of Lord Keeper Bridgeman, the 
 refusal of that Judge to grant these injunctions, and his conse- 
 quent dismissal. 3 
 
 The ceremony of delivering the Great Seal to Shaftesbury, 
 with the title of Lord Chancellor, took place next morning at 
 Whitehall, I presume, in the apartments of Lady Castlemaine/ 
 "And the said Earle having received the said Great Seale 
 as Lord Chancellor, he presently attended his Majesty at his 
 chappell in AYhitehall in that capacity, bearing the said Seale 
 before bis Majesty." u 
 
 The event was thus announced to the public in the London 
 Gazette. 
 
 " Whitehall, Nov. 17, 1672. 
 
 "His Majesty, reflecting upon the age and infirmities of Sir Orlando 
 Bridgeman, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, hath thought fit 
 to admit of his resignation thereof, with all demonstration on his Ma- 
 jesty's part of his kindness and esteem of the said Lord Keeper's merit 
 towards him ; and his Majesty, willing to gratify the uninterrupted good 
 services of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and 
 one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, was pleased this day 
 to give unto him the keeping of the said Great Seal, with the title of 
 Lord Chancellor of England." 
 
 • Ante, p. 150. from thence to the chapel — even when they 
 
 * While she retained her ascendency, the were to receive the communion, 
 ministers met the King in her apartments u Crown Off. Mln. 1672. 
 every Sunday morning, and attended him 
 
172 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVIL 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVII. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL HIS DISMISSAL) 
 FROM THE OFFICE OF LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 I cannot find how the new appointment was at first received by 
 d 16*2 ^ e profession °f the law or by the public ; but it seems 
 entirely to have turned the head of the Lord Chancellor 
 himself, and notwithstanding his excellent good sense, and his 
 discernment of the impression to be made by his conduct, he 
 now played fantastic tricks which could be expected only 
 from a fool and a coxcomb. " After he was possessed of the 
 Great Seal he was in appearance the gloriousest man alive ; 
 and no man's discourse in his place ever flew so high as he 
 did, not only against the House of Commons, where perhaps 
 he expected a party to sustain him, but against the tribe of 
 the Court of Chancery officers and counsel, and their methods 
 of ordering the business of the Court. As for the Commons, 
 he did not understand by what reason men should sit and vote 
 themselves privileges. And for the Chancery, he would teach 
 the bar that a man of sense was above all their forms. So with 
 all the gayety de cceur imaginable, and a world of pleasant wit 
 in his conversation, (as he had indeed a very great share, and 
 showed it upon all occasions,) he composed himself to perform 
 the duties of his office." x 
 
 Such confidence had he in his judicial powers derived from 
 " the light of nature," that, unlike Lord Keeper "Williams and 
 some of his sneaking predecessors, who, being "minus suffi- 
 cientes in lege," had painful misgivings as to their ability to 
 acquit themselves decently, and therefore put off as long as pos- 
 sible the time of taking their seat in the Court of Chancery, he 
 was impatient to show that he was superior as a Judge to all 
 who had ever before sat in the marble chair. " The next day, 
 being the xviii th day of November, his Lo p went to the Chan- 
 cery Co rt in Westm* Hall, and there standing in his place 
 tooke the oathes as Lord Chancellor, the booke being held to 
 
 x Examen, 46. 
 
A.D. 1673. HIS GRAND EQUESTRIAN PROCESSION. 173 
 
 him by the Master of the Rolls, the Dukes of Lauderdale and 
 Oriuond, the Earle of St. Alban's, the Earle of Arlington, and 
 several other persons of honour accompany in ge his Lo p to and 
 in the Co rt untill his Lo p was swome, all the said persons of 
 honour, with the Judges and Chancery officers, attending his 
 Lo p from his house in the Strand, to the Chancery Co n in 
 Westm r Hall." * 
 
 There is no further account of this installation. Having 
 been got up so suddenly, it could not have been very splendid. 
 But to compensate for the disappointment, Shaftesbury deter- 
 mined to amuse the metropolis with a sight that had not been 
 seen for half a century. Coaches were introduced into Eng- 
 land in the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and had for 
 many years become so common that the ancient custom of the 
 Chancellor and the Judges riding on horseback to Westminster 
 Hall to open the term had been entirely laid aside, and the 
 Chancellor had headed the procession in a grand gilt state 
 carriage almost as large as a house, — being followed by the 
 Judges, the King's Serjeants, the King's Counsel, &c, in mo- 
 dern equipages. They still continued to " ride the circuit " 
 on sober pads, but the menage for learning to sit the great 
 horse, which used to be frequented by the gentlemen of the 
 Inns of Court, was very much neglected, and the practice of 
 riding managed horses in the streets of London had fallen into 
 entire disuse. Shaftesbury, who had been bred a country 
 squire, and had been colonel of a regiment of cavalry, piqued 
 himself much upon his horsemanship, and to gratify his morbid 
 appetite to be talked of, and out of malice to some of the old 
 Judges, who he heard had been sneering at his decisions, he 
 issued an order that on the first day of Hilary term, 
 1673, there should be a judicial cavalcade according 
 to ancient form, from Exeter House in the Strand, the place 
 of his residence, to Westminster Hall. On that day he gave a 
 sumptuous breakfast not only to noblemen, judges, and other 
 dignitaries, but to all the barristers, all the students of the 
 Inns of Court, and the sixty clerks, with all the other officers 
 of the Court of Chancery. He then mounted his richly capari- 
 soned charger, — preceded by those who bore the insignia of 
 his authority, — his master of the horse, page, groom, and six 
 footmen walking along by his stirrup. 
 
 This procession marched by the Strand through the qua- 
 drangle at Whitehall to King Street, then th.9 only entrance to 
 
 7 Crown Off. Miu. 1672. 
 
174: LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVII. 
 
 Palace Yard, — and so to Westminster Hall. It is described by 
 several contemporary writers, 2 but Eoger North's account of it 
 is the most graphic. 
 
 " His Lordship had an early fancy, or rather freak, the first 
 day of the term, (when all the officers of the law, King's 
 Counsel, and Judges, used to wait upon the Great Seal to 
 "Westminster Hall,) to make this procession on horseback, as 
 in old time the way was, when coaches were not so rife. 
 And accordingly the Judges, &c. were spoken to get horses, 
 as they and all the rest did, by borrowing and hiring, and 
 so equipped themselves with black foot-cloaths in the best 
 manner they could : and divers of the nobility, as usual, in 
 compliment and honour to a new Lord Chancellor, attended 
 also in their equipments. LTpon notice in town of this caval- 
 cade, all the show company took their places at windows and 
 balconies, with the foot guard in the streets to partake of 
 the fine sight, and, being once well settled for the march, it 
 moved, as the design was, statelily along. But when they 
 came to straights and interruptions, for want of gravity in the 
 beasts and too much in the riders, there happened some cur- 
 veting, which made no little disorder. Judge Twisden, in 
 his great affright and the consternation of his grave brethren, 
 was laid along in the dirt ; a but all at length arrived safe, 
 without loss of life or limb in the service. This accident was 
 enough to divert the like frolic for the future, and the very 
 next term after, they fell to their coaches as before. Usages 
 that are most fitting at one time appear ridiculous at another. 
 As here the sitting of grave men used only to coaches, upon 
 the menage on horseback, only for the vanity of show, to make 
 men wonder and children sport, with hazard to most, mischief 
 to some, and terror to all, was very impertinent, and must end, 
 as it did, in ridicule." 
 
 We now come to consider how Shaftesbury comported him- 
 self in the Court of Chancery. The general opinion of subse- 
 quent times has been, that, with all his faults as a statesman, 
 he proved a consummate Judge. b I believe that this opinion 
 is wholly erroneous, and that it is entirely to be ascribed 
 
 T See Rawleigh Redivivus, 75. t> " It is remarkable that this man, whose 
 a According to tradition this disgrazia principles and conduct were in all other 
 happened from meeting a line of brewer's respects so exceptionable, proved an ex- 
 drays at Charing Cross. When Twisden re- cellent Chancellor." — Hume, And all the his- 
 covered himself, he declared in furore, " that torians of the eighteenth century, reading 
 no Lord Chancellor should ever make him Dryden or copying each other, write to th« 
 mount on horseback again." same effect 
 
A.D. 1673. BRIBES DRYDEN". 175 
 
 to the celebrated lines in praise of his judicial character in 
 " Absalom and Achitophel." 
 
 " Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge, 
 The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge ; 
 In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin 
 With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, 
 Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress, 
 Swift of despatch, and easy of access. 
 Oh ! had he been content to serve the Crown, 
 "With virtues only proper to the gown 1" 
 
 Had Dryden been sincere and honest in praising Shaftes- 
 bury, his testimony ought not to have much weight, for the 
 great poet probably never was in the Court of Chancery in his 
 life, and though the first of English critics in polite literature, 
 he could not have formed a very correct opinion as to the 
 propriety of an order or decree in Equity. But the panegyric 
 was purchased, and was a mere poetical picture drawn from 
 the imagination of the beau ideal of a good Chancellor. It did 
 not appear in the first edition of the poem, which, in describing 
 the character of Achitophel, contained unmixed invective, and 
 represented him as unredeemed from his vices by any sem- 
 blance of virtue. Shaftesbury, nevertheless, while the town 
 was ringing with abuse of him, and he was universally pointed 
 to as " the false Achitophel," — being a governor of the Charter 
 House, sent to Dryden a nomination to that establishment for 
 his son, — which was highly valuable to him, and was joyfully 
 accepted. A second edition was called for. The bard could 
 not soften the political character of his hero without utterly 
 destroying the poem, and breaking with the Court, who had paid 
 him well for it ; but in the fulfilment of an implied obligation, 
 he set his wits to work to consider what a Chancellor should 
 be in administering justice, and so produced the lines which 
 have induced posterity to believe that such a Chancellor was 
 Shaftesbury. King Charles is said to have been very indignant 
 when he saw the second edition, and to have declared that the 
 portrait of Achitophel was so disfigured that he no longer 
 recognised the original. 
 
 e Malone, in his "Life of Dryden," has "Feb. 5 th, 1682-3. Erasmus Henry Dryden 
 
 attempted to refute this story, but in my admitted for his Majesty (in the room of 
 
 humble opinion he has utterly failed. He Orlando Bagnall) aged 14 years 2d of May 
 
 Las shown satisfactorily that it could only next." 
 
 apply to the' poet's third son, the two elder He reasons that as the admission did not 
 
 being educated at Westminster School, and take place in the end of Nov. 1681, between 
 
 he has given a copy of the admission of this the two editions of the poem, there could be 
 
 youth in the following words :— no connection between the poetry and the 
 
176 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVIL. 
 
 Shaftesbury never took bribes. Luckily lie had only one 
 political case before hirn ; and he would not listen to private 
 solicitation in favour of litigants. But except being free from 
 gross corruption, he was the worst Judge that had ever sat in 
 the Court. This was inevitable, for he might as well have 
 tried to sustain a principal part in an opera, without having 
 learned the first rudiments of music. 
 
 There was no refusal to practise before him on account of 
 his ignorance of law, as in the case of Lord Chancellor Hatton 
 and Lord Keeper Williams. The bar took a more effectual 
 mode of exposing and subduing him. Had he been ruled by 
 his assessors/ he might have avoided any palpable absurdities ; 
 but despising all learning that he did not know, he thought he 
 was fitter to decide than any of them, and he scorned their 
 advice. To show his contempt for all who had gone before 
 him, as well as his contemporaries, he would not be habited 
 like his predecessors, " for he sat upon the bench in an ash- 
 coloured gown silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons dis- 
 played, without any black at all in his garb unless it were his 
 hat." e Roger North's account of the result of all his boasts 
 may be relied upon. "He slighted the bar, declared their 
 reign at an end. He would make all his own orders his own 
 way, and in his discourse trampled on all the forms of the 
 Court. And to be as good as his word, at his first motion-day, 
 although the counsel (as always out of respect to a new judge) 
 were easy and inclined of themselves to yield to what was fit 
 to be ordered, and not to perplex him with contention upon 
 forms ; yet he would not accept of their civility, but cut and 
 
 presentation. But on inquiry 1 find that at the Britannica," written by Dr. Kippis, who is 
 Charter House the admission sometimes does said to have received 500L from the family 
 not take place till years after the nomination, for the pains he bestowed upon it. It has 
 The expression here "for his Majesty," may been said that Dryden could not have com- 
 be inaccurate, and if accurate may be ex- posed " the Medal," after receiving such a 
 plained by an exchange of one nomination for favour from Shaftesbury,— but this is ex- 
 another (not an unusual practice) to suit the plained by the royal solicitation and the 100 
 ages of the boys, — and it is nothing when we broad pieces. — See post. 
 consider that the anecdote rests on the autho- d By a reference to the minutes in the 
 rity of a most respectable lawyer, Stringer, Registrar's Office, it appears that on the 18th 
 the intimate friend and prote'ge' of Shaftes of Nov. 1672, the Master of the Rolls and Mr. 
 bury, who was Secretary of Presentations to Baron Windham sat with him, and that he 
 him while he was Chancellor, and probably had the Master of the Rolls, or a common law 
 would be the person by whom the act. would Judge, and Masters in Chancery by him every 
 be done ;— that it is confirmed by Martyn, day he sat till the end of the term, 
 who wrote the life of the first Lord Shaftes- e Examen, 60. He is said to have been 
 bury under the superintendence of his grand- "more like a rakish young nobleman at 
 ton ; — and that it is repeated in the eulogistic the University than a Lord High Chan- 
 Life of Lord Shaftesbury in the " Biographia ccilor." 
 
A.D. 1673. 
 
 HIS DECISIONS. 
 
 177 
 
 slashed after his own fancy ; and nothing would down with 
 him that any of them suggested, though all were agreed upon 
 the matter. They soon found his humour, and let him have 
 his caprice ; and after, upon notice, moved him to discharge 
 his orders ; and thereupon, having the advantage upon the 
 opening to be heard at large, they showed him his face, and 
 that what he did was against common justice and sense. And 
 this speculum of his own ignorance and presumption coming 
 to be laid before him every motion-day, did so intricate and 
 embarrass his understanding, that, in a short time, like any 
 haggered hawk that is not let sleep, he was entirely re- 
 claimed. And from a trade of perpetually making and un- 
 making his own orders, he fell to be the tamest Judge, and, as 
 to all forms and modes of proceeding, the most resigned to the 
 disposition of the bar, that ever sat on that bench." f "He 
 swaggered and vapoured what asses he would make of all the 
 counsel at the bar, but like the month of March, as they say, 
 1 In like a lion, and out like a lamb.'' " g 
 
 There are a few of his decisions to be found in the books, b 
 but none of these are of the slightest importance, except " the 
 Bankers' case," for which he assumed the Great Seal. The 
 application for the injunctions was immediately renewed be- 
 fore him. Having told the King " that it was only a morose 
 scrupulosity and humour in his old Keeper that made him 
 averse to passing them," he could not flatly refuse them, al- 
 
 f Examen, 57 
 
 8 Life of Guilford, ii. 74. The only con- 
 tradictory authority, if such it may he called, 
 ia " Rawleigh Redivivus," which being an 
 unmixed and unqualified eulogy of the whole 
 life of Shaftesbury, contains lines extolling 
 not only the purity of his morals, but his 
 judicial excellence : — 
 
 • " His choice sagacity 
 
 Straight solv'd the knot that subtle lawyers 
 
 tyed, 
 And through all fogs discern'd the oppressed 
 
 side; 
 Banish'd delays, and so this noble peer 
 Became a star of honour in our sphere." 
 
 Part i. 88. 
 
 It has been supposed that he was the 
 author of a new code for regulating the prac- 
 tice of the Court of Chancery ; and there is 
 extant a paper entitled " A collection of the 
 Orders heretofore used in Chancery, with 
 such alterations and additions thereunto aa 
 the Right Honourable Axthoxt Earle of 
 VOL. IT. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord High Chancellor of 
 England, by and with the advice and assist- 
 ance of the Honourable Sir Harbottle 
 GRnrsTOXE, Baronet, Master of the Rolls, 
 hath thought fit at present to ordaine and 
 publish: For reforming of sererall abuses in 
 the said Court, preventing of multiplicity of 
 suites and unnecessary charge to the suitors, 
 and for their more expeditious and certaine 
 course for reliefe." This collection is ex- 
 ceedingly well digested, and might have been 
 very useful ; but it can confer no credit on 
 Shaftesbury, for he left his office without 
 ever having signed it, and the probability is, 
 that he never even read it. It had been 
 drawn up for his consideration, but he had 
 thrown it aside. The regulations it contains 
 against the idleness and malpractices of coun- 
 sel are particularly curious. — See Saunders's 
 Orders, i. 344, n., ii. 1056, 1075. Martyn, by 
 Cooke, ii. 81. 
 
 h See Reports in Chancery, 24 & 25 Car. 
 LL 
 
 N 
 
178 LDRD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVII. 
 
 though, " it was said to be no new device to shove men out 
 of their places by contriving incomportable hardships to be 
 put upon them, and after bespeaking the succession by offi- 
 cious undertaking to do all that was required, to break the 
 condition of the advancement." ' He was a good deal per- 
 plexed ; for on the renewed argument it was made to appear 
 more clearly than ever that the illegal act of shutting up the 
 Exchequer could not be a ground for preventing actions 
 against the bankers to recover acknowledged debts long since 
 payable. After a little blustering at the unreasonableness of 
 the creditors, he resorted to the expedient of granting injunc- 
 tions unless cause should be shown at a distant day, and, by 
 some contrivance, the day of hearing was postponed from time 
 to time till he went out of office. 
 
 In swearing in Mr. Serjeant Thurland a Baron of the Ex- 
 chequer, the Chancellor gave him a lecture on his duties after 
 ancient custom, saying, amongst other things, — " Let not the 
 King's prerogative and the law be two things with you, for 
 the King's prerogative is law and the principal part of it ; 
 and therefore, in maintaining that, you maintain the l&w. So 
 manage the King's justice and revenue as the King may have 
 most profit and the subject least vexation. Give me leave 
 also to remind you of your oath that the King's needs ye shall 
 speed before all other, that is, the business of the revenue 
 of the Crown j^ou are to despatch before all other, and not 
 turn your Court into a Court of Common Pleas, and let that 
 justle out what you were constituted for. Let me con- 
 clude with what concerns all my Lords the Judges, as well 
 as you, — let me recommend to you the port and way of living 
 suitable to the dignity of your place and what the King 
 allows you." 
 
 He wished the Treasury to have remained in Commission, 
 and was rather annoyed by Clifford receiving the white staff, 
 and being placed above him in the ministry. When the new 
 Lord Treasurer was sworn in before him, he made a speech 
 in which, after applying to the King the character of the Em- 
 peror Titus—" Delicia> humani generis" he said, "no subtle in- 
 sinuations of any near him, nor the aspiring interest of a 
 favourite, shall ever prevail against those that serve him well, 
 nor can his servants fear to be sacrificed to a more swelling 
 popular greatness." 
 
 Parliament had not met for nearly two years, being 
 
 i Examen, <# 
 
A.D. 1673. HIS SPEECH OX OPENING PARLIAMENT. .179 
 
 prorogued from time to time that the Cabal might more 
 quietly cany on their operations, — but the state of the Ex- 
 chequer at length rendered a session indispensable. To 
 strengthen his party in thv> House of Commons, Shaftesbury 
 resorted to the bold measure of issuing writs by his own au- 
 thority for the election of new members to fill up all the va- 
 cancies which had occurred. These writs were delivered to 
 his creatures who were to be candidates, and who, being able 
 to fix the time of election, generally succeeded. He likewise 
 maintained that, the writs issuing under the Great Seal, it was 
 for the Chancellor to decide the validity of the elections, in 
 spite of the resolutions of the House of Commons usurping a 
 jurisdiction on this subject. 
 
 On the 4th of February, 1673, the session began, and 
 the King having addressed the two Houses, was followed 
 by Shaftesbury in a speech which for impudence and effron- 
 tery far exceeds any to be found in our parliamentary re- 
 cords. He begins in a protecting, condescending, patronising 
 style, by praising his royal Master: — " My Lords, and you 
 the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the House of Com- 
 mons, the King hath spoken so fully, so excellently well, and 
 so like himself, that you are not to expect much from me." He 
 justifies the two years' adjournment on the ground that the 
 King wished to give the members ease and vacancy for their 
 own private concerns. He boldly defends the breach of the 
 Triple Alliance, and the league with the French King against 
 the Dutch : — " Both Kings knowing their interest, resolved 
 to join against them who were the common enemies to all 
 monarchies, and I may say especially to ours, their only com- 
 petitor for trade and power at sea, and who only can stand 
 in their way to an universal empire as great as Eome. But 
 you judged aright. Delenda est Carthago, and therefore the 
 King may well say to you, ' it is your war.' The shutting up 
 of the Exchequer he treats without any apparent conscious- 
 ness of the measure being liable to the slightest blame, saying, 
 that " the King had made use of his owti revenue which had 
 enabled him effectually to carry on the war and to check ex- 
 orbitant interest obtained by the bankers." " But," he mildly 
 adds, " though he hath put a stop to the trade and gain of 
 the bankers, yet he would be unwilling to ruin them, ami 
 oppress so many families as are concerned in those debts. 
 This he lays as a ground for a large supply which he re- 
 quires to be speedily granted before any inquiry into the 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXTIL 
 
 manner in which the public difficulties had arisen. He then 
 comes to " the Declaration of Indulgence," and if he was not 
 a party to the original treaty with Louis, originated by Clif- 
 ford for the establisnment of the Eoman Catholic religion in 
 England, being now well acquainted with its contents, he 
 ascribes the suspension of the penal laws to the King's regard 
 for toleration. " He loves not blood nor rigorous severities, 
 but where mild or gentle ways may be used by a wise prince, 
 he is certain to choose them. The Church of England and 
 all good Protestants have reason to rejoice in such a Head and 
 such a Defender. His Majesty doth declare his care and con- 
 cerns for the Church, and will maintain her in all her rights 
 and privileges equal if not beyond any of his predecessors." 
 Having urgently pressed for a supply, we have this modest, 
 peroration, with a sneer at " The Triple Alliance" " Let me 
 conclude, nay let us all conclude, with blessing God and the 
 King. Let us bless God that he hath given us such a King. 
 Let us bless the King for taking away all our fears, and 
 leaving no room for jealousies. Let us bless God and the 
 King that our religion is safe ; that the Church of England is 
 the care of our Prince ; that Parliaments are safe ; that our 
 properties and liberties are safe. TA'hat more hath a good 
 Englishman to ask but that this King may long reign, and 
 that this ' triple alliance ' of King, parliament, and people 
 may never be dissolved ? " k 
 
 Shaftesbury, much ashamed of this speech when he had 
 become a patriot, pretended that it had been " settled in the 
 Council," and that it expressed the King's sentiments only, 
 not his own. But it is so racy and characteristic that no man 
 in England could have composed it except Shaftesbury him- 
 self ; and he could not palliate his guilt by the unconstitutional 
 doctrine that, instead of the speech of the King being liable 
 to censure as the speech of the Minister, the speech of the 
 Minister is sacred from censure as the speech of the King. 
 The truth is, that, at this moment, he thought of nothing but 
 how he might outstrip all others in complying with the royal 
 inclination ; and he succeeded so well, that Charles declared, 
 " My Chancellor knows more law than all my Judges, and 
 more divinity than all my Bishops." 
 
 Even in Shaftesbury, hardly ever was there such a sudden 
 change of conduct as he now exhibited. Parliament had not 
 sat a week, when, perceiving the disposition which it mani- 
 
 * 4 Pari. Hist 503. 
 
A.D. 1673. HE SUPPORTS THE TEST ACT. 181 
 
 fested, he entirely altered his plan of operations, and began to 
 intrigue with the country party against his colleagues of the 
 Cabal. The Commons immediately attacked his writs issued 
 in vacation of his own authority, and declared the elections 
 under them void. He wished to resist, but the King, backed 
 by Clifford and the Duke of York, would not enter into the 
 controversy, and he was obliged to succumb. m He had his 
 revenge by secretly fomenting the proceedings of the House 
 of Commons against " the Declaration of Indulgence." Upon 
 the resolution passing, " that penal statutes, in matters eccle- 
 siastical, cannot be suspended but by act of parliament," — 
 while Clifford, Buckingham, and Lauderdale advised defiance, 
 Shaftesbury said, " his individual opinion continued unshaken 
 in favour of the prerogative, but he would not venture to 
 place it in the balance against the authority of so august a 
 body as the House of Commons." While he was speaking, 
 the Duke of York, enraged at him, whispered the King, who 
 was standing at the fire, " AYhat a rogue you have for a Lord 
 Chancellor ! " The King answered, " Cods-fish, what a fool 
 have you of a Lord Treasurer ! " n Clifford was outwitted, 
 and Charles finding himself thus deserted by the Keeper of 
 his conscience, sent for the Declaration, cancelled it at the 
 Council Board, and forwarded a promise to the Lords and 
 Commons that " what had been done with respect to the sus- 
 pension of the penal laws should never be drawn into con- 
 sequence." Bonfires illuminated the streets of the metro- 
 polis. 
 
 Shaftesbury's present plan was to take advantage of the 
 popular feeling, that he might rid himself of the Romanising 
 ministers, and get all power into his own hands as the head 
 of the Protestant party. He therefore warmly encouraged 
 the Test Act, and contrived the introduction into it of the 
 famous declaration against " Transubstantiation," which no 
 Catholic could possibly make. ° The King's scruples were 
 overcome by the observation, that, in the present temper of 
 the House of Commons, he could on no other terms hope for 
 a supply, and that his brother James would not be so insen- 
 sate as to sacrifice the possession of office to the profession of 
 his religion. 
 
 To please the Dissenters, Shaftesbury pretended to support 
 the bill for their relief, on the promise of which they had 
 agreed to the Test Act ; but the latter act, which he thought 
 
 m 4 Pari. Hist. 507. a Echard. ° Stat. 25 Car. 2, c 2. 
 
182 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LJXXVII. 
 
 was to secure his supremacy in the Cabinet, having passed, he 
 grew indifferent about the other, and suffered it to be lost by 
 a parliamentary manoeuvre of the high Churchmen. 
 
 As soon as parliament had adjourned, the Duke of York, 
 now openly professing himself a Poinan Catholic, resigned all 
 his employments, and Clifford surrendering the Treasurer's 
 staff, it was given to Sir Thomas Osborne, afterwards Earl of 
 Dauby. Shaftesbury was far from enjoying the undivided 
 power he had exj^ected, and the King was already taught to 
 look upon him with distrust and dislike. Notwithstanding 
 this apparent coldness, " it was not fit to lay him aside till it 
 should appear what service he could do them in another 
 session of parliament," p and knowing his extraordinary energy, 
 they were obliged to deliberate whether he would be more 
 formidable to them in office or in opposition. 
 
 During the recess, which lasted above six months, never 
 were the councils of any country in a more distracted state. 
 A sanguine hope was entertained that Shaftesbuiy would be 
 ruined by the question of Martial Law. Thus wrote Sir W. 
 Coventry to a friend : — ■" I believe that Lord Chancellor will 
 now have a great plunge upon Martial Law. His old supports 
 at Court, I apprehend, have left, or will leave him upon this 
 point ; and on the other side, if he pass it, adieu to the popu- 
 larity he hath seemed to pretend to of late : and when it is 
 passed, it will make some difficulties even in the army, for if 
 ever Parliament sit again, whoever shall have sat at condemn- 
 ing any man for life or limb will, I believe, be questioned, 
 this point and matter of money being the only guard the 
 people have against an army they so much dread." But the 
 great measure in agitation was the Duke of York's marriage 
 with the Princess of Modena, — against which Shaftesbuiy, 
 holding the Great Seal, intrigued with the malcontents, join- 
 ing in the popular cry, ' ' that -it was dangerous to the esta- 
 blished religion." The two Houses being adjourned to the 
 20th of October, the Lord Chancellor had received orders to 
 see that they should adjourn to a subsequent day without then 
 transacting any business ; but he thought fit to delay the ad- 
 journment till the Commons had, with great zeal and unani- 
 mity, agreed upon an address to the Crown against the Mo- 
 denese match. The King was much exasperated, but had not 
 yet the courage to dismiss him ; and at the regular opening of 
 the session on the 29th of October, after the King's speech, he, 
 
 P Burnet 
 
A.D. 1673. HIS DISMISSAL. 183 
 
 as Chancellor, again addressed the Lords and Commons ; but 
 m even he could hardly, on such an occasion, openly attack 
 the government, and as he would say nothing in its praise, he 
 was brief and tame, reminding his hearers of his former live- 
 liness only by one sally : k ' There is not so lawful or com- 
 mendable a jealousy in the world as an Englishman's of the 
 growing greatness of any prince at sea. If you permit the 
 sea, our British wife, to be ravished, an eternal mark of infamy 
 will stick upon us." Anticipating that he shotild soon be in 
 opposition, and in want of the support of the City, he put in a 
 good word for the goldsmiths or bankers, saying, " You all 
 know how many widows, orphans, and particular persons the 
 public calamity hath overtaken, and how hard it is that so dis- 
 proportionate a burthen should fall upon them even to their 
 utter ruin." q 
 
 Nothing was done in the Lords ; but the Chancellor's asso- 
 ciates were very active in the Commons, and during a supper 
 at the Duchess of Portsmouth's, when the King was a good 
 deal excited by wine, it was resolved that, to put an end to 
 their machinations, parliament should instantly be dissolved. 
 On cooler reflection, next morning, Charles mitigated his re- 
 solution to a prorogation, and, sending for Shaftesbury, asked 
 him if he had brought his parliamentary robes ? This led to 
 an explanation, in which Shaftesbury, according to his own 
 account, warned the King against the measures into which 
 " the Popish faction " were hurrying him. Eetiring from the 
 closet, he sent a servant for his robes, and on his way to West- 
 minster met a friend to whom he related this conversation/ 
 
 The King was in the House of Lords almost as soon as the 
 Chancellor, and the Black Eod was sent to summon the Com- 
 mons. An effort was made to keep him out till certain factious 
 resolutions might be carried ; but before the motion could be 
 seconded, " that the Duke of Lauderdale was a grievance." he 
 had thrice knocked, and the door was thrown open to him. 
 When the Commons came to the bar of the House of Lords, 
 the King ordered the Lord Chancellor to prorogue the two 
 Houses in his name till the 7th of January. Shaftesbury 
 obeyed, and was virtually out of office. 
 
 It was now thought that he could not be more dangerous in 
 any position than in his present, and the Duke of York ex- 
 tracted a royal promise that he should be immediately dis- 
 missed. The morning of Sunday, the 9th of November, before 
 
 1 4 Pari. Hist. 5S6. * Stringer 
 
184 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVII. 
 
 chapel at Whitehall, was fixed for the transfer of the Great 
 Seal to Sir Heneage Finch, the Attorney-General, who had 
 been summoned then and there to receive it. We have a very 
 amusing account of Shaftesbury's last appearance as Chan- 
 cellor. As soon as he arrived at Court, he retired with the 
 King into the closet, while the prevailing party waited in 
 triumph to see him return without the purse. The first salu- 
 tation being over, he said, " Sir, I know you intend to give the 
 Seals to the Attorney- General, but I am sure your Majesty never 
 designed to dismiss me with contempt." The King, always good- 
 humoured, replied, " Cods-fish, my Lord, I will not do it with any 
 circumstance as may look like an affront" " Then, Sir," said the 
 Earl, " I desire your Majesty will permit me to carry the Seals before 
 you to chapel, and send for them afterwards to my own house." To 
 this his Majesty readily assenting, Shaftesbury entertained him 
 with news and diverting stories till the very minute he was to 
 go to the chapel, purposely to amuse the courtiers and his suc- 
 cessor, who, he knew, were upon the rack for fear he should 
 prevail upon the King to change his mind. The King, and 
 the Chancellor still holding the purse, came out 6f the closet 
 talking together and smiling, and marched together to chapel, 
 without an opportunity being given for the King to say a 
 word to. any of the by-standers. They were all in great con- 
 sternation; and some ran immediately to tell the Duke of 
 York all their measures were broken, and others declared 
 themselves to be inconsolable. The Attorney-General nearly 
 fainted away. s 
 
 At the conclusion of the service Shaftesbury carried the 
 jreat Seal home with him to Exeter House, and in the after- 
 noon it was fetched from him by Mr. Secretary Coventry, who 
 said, "I desired to be excused from this office; but, being 
 your relation and friend, they put it as an affront upon me." 
 Shaftesbury gave up the Seal with an air of great cheerfulness, 
 exclaiming — " It is only laying down my gown, and putting 
 on my sword !" ' This emblem of hostility he actually ordered 
 to be brought to him by his servant, and he immediately 
 buckled it on. 
 
 The same evening Sir Heneage Finch's fears were all dis- 
 sipated by his receiving the Great Seal from the King, with 
 the title of Lord Keeper. 
 
 Echard. * Crown Off. Min. 1673. 
 
AJ). 1673-74. AT THE HEAD OF THE OPPOSITION. 185 
 
 CHAPTEK LXXXVIII. 
 
 GOXTDTUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL THE BREAKING 
 
 OUT OF THE POPISH PLOT. 
 
 While the ceremony of delivering the Great Seal to Sir 
 Heneage Finch, as Lord Keeper, was going on in the Dec. 19, 
 palace at Whitehall, Exeter House was crowded with 1673 - 
 the leading men of the country party, and Shaftesbury was by 
 acclamation installed as their chief. He found the name of 
 " patriot " all-atoning, — and the disgraced minister who had 
 been the adviser of the most arbitrary measures, proclaiming 
 himself the adversary of the Court, was hailed as the champion 
 of the liberties of the people. 
 
 Next morning, accompanied by some of the young nobility, 
 he went to the Royal Exchange, where all the great merchants 
 and bankers then daily congregated, — entered into familiar 
 conversation with them, — and feelingly deplored to them the 
 depression of trade, and the miseries of the nation, arising 
 from profligate measures, which he had in vain done his utmost 
 to resist, till at last he had been dismissed for his integrity 
 and boldness. They gathered round him with enthusiasm as 
 a persecuted philanthropist, and vowed to live and die in his 
 cause. But it was religion that gave him the prodigious 
 power which from this time he wielded. He was regarded as 
 the saviour of the nation from Popery, and, though among his 
 private friends it was doubtful whether or not he believed in 
 revelation, theologians were found to proclaim him from the 
 pulpit as the saviour of the true faith, and to foretell that his 
 fame, like that of the woman mentioned in the Gospel, should 
 live throughout all future generations. 11 
 
 During the short session of parliament, in the spring of 
 1674, he carried addresses for a public fast "to im- ad l674 
 plore the protection of the Almighty for the preserva- 
 tion of church and state against the undermining practices of 
 Popish recusants;" — "for the removal from office of all coun- 
 sellors Popishly affected, or otherwise obnoxious or dan* 
 
 u Parker, 206, 271. Macph. Pap. i. 69. Life of James, i. 488. 
 
186 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVIIL 
 
 geroiis;" and specifically "for the dismissal of the Dukes of 
 Lauderdale and Buckingham." He next attempted the im- 
 peachment of Arlington, but here he was baffled ; and he like- 
 wise failed in the attempts which he made to exclude the 
 Duke of York from sitting in the House of Lords, as his Boyal 
 Highness submitted to abjure the temporal power of the Pope, 
 and a bill for a more stringent test to be taken by all the 
 ministers of both Houses was lost.* The parliamentary re- 
 ports of this period are so defective, that there are but scanty 
 remains of his speeches in the House of Lords during the 
 subsequent part of his career. 
 
 In the following session his party in the Lords was 
 ,„,,* strengthened by the Duke of Buckingham, who, 
 having quarrelled with Charles, now joined in 
 raising the cry of " No Popery." But Danby imitated the 
 arts of his opponents, and greatly appeased the Protestants by 
 marrying the Princess Mary, in spite of her father's remon- 
 strances, to the Prince of Orange, and issuing a proclamation 
 against Popish recusants. Though these measures were de- 
 nounced as artifices of the "Popish party," the impeach- 
 ment which had been moved against the minister was 
 dropped. 
 
 The Court, to pursue its success, introduced a bill into the 
 Lords, which was either to expel Shaftesbury from the House 
 of Lords, or to degrade him. This was entitled "An Act to 
 prevent the Dangers which may arise from Persons disaffected 
 to the Government," and required, from all persons in office, 
 and all members of parliament, a declaration in favour of 
 passive obedience, with an oath " never to endeavour the 
 alteration of the government in church or state." It had very 
 nearly become the law of the land, and utterly extinguished 
 our free constitution. Its defeat we owe entirely to Shaftes- 
 bury's unexampled energy and boundless resources. L T nfor- 
 tunately we can by no means laud the purity of his motives, 
 but we are exceedingly beholden to his exertions ; and this 
 much I think I may fairly say for him, that although he would 
 not scruple for his private ends to abet the most arbitrary prin- 
 ciples and the most profligate measures, yet he seems to have 
 acted more heartily and joyously in a good cause when his 
 ambition called upon him to support it. 
 
 On this occasion, heading a small party in the Lords, and 
 with a decided majority against him in the Commons, — by his 
 
 x 4 Pari. Hist. 611-666. 
 
A.D. 1G75. OPPOSES THE TEST BILL. 187 
 
 skilful management he defeated the Court and saved the 
 country. Not until after five days" debate would he suffer the 
 bill to be read a second time, and, in a protest circulated 
 throughout the nation, he asserted that " it struck at that 
 freedom of debating and voting which is necessary for those 
 who have the power to alter and make laws, and that the bill 
 obliged every man to abjure all endeavours to improve the 
 government of the church, without regard to anything that 
 Christian compassion or the necessity of affairs might at. any 
 time require." The Lords resolved, "that the reasons given 
 in the said protest did reflect upon the honour of the House, 
 and were of dangerous consequence ; ' but this only pro- 
 duced a more violent protest from Shaftesbury against the 
 resolution. 
 
 He kept the bill twelve days in the committee, — the House 
 sitting from an early hour in the morning till eight in the 
 evening, and sometimes till midnight. The Government pro- 
 posed, as an amendment, that the oath should be, "not to 
 endeavour to alter the Protestant religion, or the government 
 either of church or state." He asked "where are the boun- 
 daries, or how much is meant by the Protestant religion ? ' ' 
 
 The Lord Keeper Finch, his successor, exclaimed, " Tell it 
 not in, Gath, nor publish it in, the streets of Ascalon, that a Peer of so 
 great parts and eminence as my noble and learned friend, a 
 member of the Church of England, and the champion of the 
 Reformation, should confess that he does not know what is 
 meant by the Protestant religion." Several Bishops followed, 
 explaining that the Protestant religion is comprehended in the 
 thirty -nine articles, the liturgy, the catechism, the houiilies, 
 and the canons of the Church of England. From the few pre- 
 served fragments of Shaftesbury's reply, it seems to have been 
 most splendid — pointing out the defects in these standards t f 
 orthodoxy, with the opposite interpretations put upon them by 
 different parties in the Church, — and asking whether it should 
 be a crime to propose to restore the liturgy to what it was in 
 the days of Queen Elizabeth? Overhearing a Bishop, who 
 had become very indolent since his elevation, say to another 
 Bishop, " I wonder when he will have done preaching," he 
 said in an under tone to be heard distinctly all over the House, 
 " ^Yhen I am made a Bishop, my Lord," — and then proceeded 
 triumphantly with his speech. 7 The King attended the de- 
 
 y Inconvenience seems to have been felt Lords assemble being too small, so that re« 
 then, as now, from the room" in which the marks in private conversation are htard 
 
188 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXV III 
 
 bates very regularly, sometimes sitting in his chair of state, 
 but more frequently standing by the fire. He eagerly sup- 
 ported the bill, which he was told was a panacea for all the 
 evils of faction, and would make the rest of his reign quiet 
 and happy. Yet he could not but smile at this jest upon the 
 Bishop. Buckingham was stimulated by envy to make a ruder 
 assault upon the right reverend bench, but he was not equally 
 felicitous. 2 
 
 The Bill at last passed and was sent down to the Commons, 
 where preparations were ordered to be made for its good re- 
 ception by a very copious distribution of bribes. 
 
 It was read a second time by a large majority, and it was 
 now thought quite safe, — when Shaftesbury arrested its pro- 
 gress, and defeated it, by stirring up a quarrel between the 
 two Houses on a question of privilege. This he dexterously 
 inflamed to such a pitch of violence, that it threatened a public 
 convulsion ; and it could only be appeased by putting a sudden 
 end to the session. 
 
 At this time it happened that appeals were brought to the 
 House of Lords from the Court of Chancery in three suits, in 
 which members of the House of Commons were the respond- 
 ents, and they received notice to appear at the bar of the 
 House of Lords to hear the appeals argued and adjudged. 
 
 Writs of error from the Courts of Common law had been 
 brought in the House of Lords without dispute from a very 
 remote era ; but appeals in Equity suits were of very recent 
 origin, and their legality had been denied. On Shaftesbury's 
 suggestion, the matter was taken up in the Commons, and all 
 those over whom he had influence joined in a vote which was 
 nearly unanimous and seemed wholly unconnected with po- 
 litics, " that the notice served upon the members of that 
 House to appear at the bar of the House of Lords was a breach 
 of privilege." Shaftesbury himself, in the Upper House, 
 strongly insisted on their right to hear appeals from the Courts 
 of Equity, and that it could make no difference whether the 
 parties were or were not members of the House of Commons ; 
 otherwise a denial of justice must follow. The Commons, in 
 a fury, which court and country party shared, committed 
 Shirley and Stoughton, two of the appellants, to the Tower, — 
 
 across the table. From this and other causes, The spacious and splendid ball in which the 
 
 a meeting of the Lords has more the appear- Lords now assemble has deprived them of 
 
 ance of a club for idle lounging than of a de- all excuse for their errors on the score of 
 
 liberative assembly to pass laws. A.D. 1845. locality. A. D. 1618. z 4 Pari. Hist. 714. 
 
\.D. 1675. QUARREL BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES. T»9 
 
 resolved " that to prosecute in the House of Lords any cause 
 against a member of their House was a breach of privilege ;" 
 — declared " that no appeal lay from the Courts of Equity to 
 any other tribunal ;" — and ordered that the four banisters 
 who, by order of the Lords, had pleaded before that House in 
 one of the appeals, should be taken into custody. Shaftesbury, 
 delighted to see the quarrel go on so gloriously, made a long 
 and inflammatory speech in defence of the rights of the peer- 
 age, — and, describing the imprisonment of the four barristers 
 as an insupportable insult, moved that they should be imme- 
 diately set at liberty by order of the House. The resolution 
 was carried with tumultuous applause, and the captive bar- 
 risters were forcibly rescued by the Usher of the Black Eod, 
 the officer of the Lords, — from the Serjeant at Arms, the officer 
 of the Commons, — who was so frightened by his loss that he 
 suddenly absconded, to escape the punishment of his pusil- 
 lanimity. But the enemies of the Test Bill declared in the 
 Commons, that "if this outrage were submitted to, not only 
 the privileges of the Commons, but the liberties of England 
 were for ever subverted," and an order was made that the four 
 barristers should be recaptured. Next morning, Speaker Sey- 
 mour passing up Westminster Hall saw one of them, Pemberton 
 (afterwards Chief Justice), and with the assistance of some of 
 the officers of the House took him prisoner, and lodged him in 
 " Little Ease." a The other three b were arrested in the Court 
 of King's Bench by the new Serjeant at Arms, eager to show 
 his superior courage, — and all the four, being brought to the 
 bar of the House, were committed to the Tower. 
 
 At the suggestion of the ministers the King attempted to 
 appease the feud, and addressing the two Houses at White- 
 hall, told them " they were the dupes of men enemies to him 
 and to the Church of England, who were indifferent about pri- 
 vilege, and only sought a dissolution, whereby a measure of 
 great importance to the peace of the kingdom might be 
 defeated." He then very unadvisedly talked in a slighting 
 manner of questions of privilege, and intimated an intention 
 of deciding this controversy in a summary manner by his own 
 authority." 
 
 Shaftesbury took advantage of this indiscretion, and the 
 esprit de corps absorbing for the moment the love' for the test, he 
 
 * For this exploit the Speaker received the b Sir John Churchill, Mr. Serjeant Pecke 
 •pedal thanks of the House. 4 ParL Hist, and Mr. Porter. 
 t33. c 4 Pari. Hist. 721. 
 
190 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVI1L 
 
 hurried on the Lords to make an order on the Lieutenant of 
 the Tower to set the four barristers at liberty, and, on a re- 
 fusal, to resort to the novel process of issuing writs of habeas 
 corpus, commanding the Lieutenant to produce his prisoners 
 before the King in his High Court of Parliament. The Lord 
 Keeper, who well saw the drift of this proceeding, was him- 
 self ordered to sign and seal the writs, and to send them to be 
 executed by a sufficient force. The Commons, on the other 
 hand, resolved " that the Serjeant at Arms attending this 
 House be protected against all persons that shall any ways 
 molest or hinder him from executing his office ;" and they 
 passed resolutions "that no commoners of England, committed 
 by the order or warrant of the House of Commons for breach 
 of privilege, ought, without order of the House, to be by any 
 writ of habeas corpus, or any other authority whatever, made to 
 appear, or answer, or receive any determination in the House 
 of Peers." 2. "That the order of the House of Peers for 
 issuing writs of habeas corpus concerning the four barristers 
 committed by the House is insufficient and illegal." 3. " That 
 the Lord Keeper be informed of these resolutions, so that the 
 said writs of habeas corpus may be superseded as contrary to 
 law and the privileges of the House." 
 
 Thus was the dispute brought to the verge of civil war, — 
 and. to preserve the public tranquillity, the Government was 
 driven to abandon the Test Bill. The morning after these re- 
 solutions had been passed, the King came to the House of 
 Lords, and the Commons being summoned, he declared that 
 " those unhappy differences between his two Houses were 
 grown to such a height that he found no possible means of 
 putting an end to them but by a prorogation." d 
 
 I conceive that for tactics there is no parliamentary cam- 
 paign more brilliant than this of Shaftesbury. Bishop Burnet 
 says, that " in one of the debates on the Test Bill he spoke a 
 whole hour against the non-resistance clause ; and that, though 
 his words were watched so that it was resolved to send him to 
 the Tower if he had uttered any thing that could be laid hold 
 
 «/ CD 
 
 of, he spoke both with so much boldness and so much caution 
 that, while he provoked the Court extremely, no advantage 
 could be taken against him." 6 But all this was nothing com- 
 pared to his dexterity in playing off the two Houses against 
 each other on the question of privilege. Such fervour did he 
 
 <i 4 Pari. Hisl. 74C Lords' Journ. 1675. Com. Jour. 1675. Marvell, i. 517. Burnet, 
 ii. 75. e Burnet, i. 384. 
 
A.D. 1675. HIS SKILFUL PARLIAMENTARY TACTICS. 191 
 
 excite in the Commons, that no coin-tier had the courage to 
 oppose the resolutions against the encroachments of the Lords, 
 and they passed nemiae dissentiente. In the Lords, although at 
 the head of a very small political party, he so manoeuvred, 
 that the resolutions against the illegal proceedings of the Com- 
 mons were carried by a large majority, composed chiefly of 
 supporters of the " Test Bill," which they were framed to 
 defeat, and he earned along with him the whole House, except 
 a few Bishops and placemen. He now published a pamphlet 
 under the title of " A Letter from a Person of Quality to a 
 Friend in the Country/' in which he was assisted by Locke, 
 purporting to detail the debate on the subject of the non- 
 resisting test. 
 
 Both Houses meeting after a recess of four months, the 
 Court hoped that now a supply might be granted, which 
 would make way for the re-introduction of the " Test Bill ;" 
 but a most injudicious motion was made and carried, " that the 
 pamphlet entitled A Letter from a Person of Quality to a Friend in 
 the Country was a lying, scandalous, and seditious libel, and that 
 it be burned by the hands of the common hangman." Shaftes- 
 bury durst not avow the publication, and could hardly resist 
 the motion ; but he had his revenge by moving " that a day be 
 appointed for hearing at the bar the appeal of Shirley v. Fogg." 
 A most animated debate ensued, in which the courtiers tried 
 to get rid of the difficulty, by a proposal to adjourn all ju- 
 dicial business for six weeks. We have a full report of his 
 reply, which shows us the great dexterity with which he ad- 
 dressed himself to the feelings and prejudices of his audience. 
 He thus began : " My Lords, our all is at stake, and therefore 
 you must give me leave to speak freely before we part with it." 
 He then goes over the different topics adduced by his op- 
 ponents, — dwelling with peculiar severity on the arguments 
 of the Bishop of Salisbury and the Lord Keeper. He reminds 
 them, in a taunting manner, of the arrest of the four barristers 
 for pleading by their order at their bar : " How far the pre- 
 tended privilege of the House of Commons, their servants, and 
 those they own, doth extend, Westminster Hall may with 
 grief tell your Lordships. And, my Lords, we are sure it 
 doth not stop here, for they have already, nem. con., voted 
 against your Lordships' power of appeals from any Court of 
 Equity ; so that you may plainly see where this caution and 
 reason of state means to stop ; — not one jot short of laying 
 your whole judicature aside. The poorest Lord, if birthright 
 
192 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXyill. 
 
 of the peerage be maintained, has a fair prospect before him 
 for himself or his posterity ; but the greatest title, with mere 
 present power and riches, is but a mean creature, and main- 
 tains nobles in absolute monarchies no otherwise than by 
 servile and low flatteries. My Lords, it is not only your in- 
 terest, but the interest of the nation, that you maintain your 
 rights ; for let the House of Commons and gentry of England 
 think what they please, there is no Prince that ever governed 
 without a nobility or an army ; if you will not have one you 
 must have the other, or the monarchy cannot long support or 
 keep itself from tumbling into a democratical republic. My 
 Lords, would you be in favour with the King ? Do not put 
 yourselves out of a future capacity to be considerable in his 
 service. I will serve my Prince as a Peer, but will not de- 
 stroy the Peerage to serve him." He next attacks the Bishops 
 in a manner which shows that the venerable heads of the 
 Church were not held in such reverence then as in our time. 
 Defending the purity of the judicial decisions of the House of 
 Lords, in spite of attempts by the Court to corrupt them, he 
 says, " It was come to that pass, that men even hired or bor- 
 rowed of their friends handsome sisters or daughters to de- 
 liver their petitions ; but yet for all this, I must say that your 
 judgments have been sacred, unless in one or two causes, and 
 those we owe most to that Bench from whence we now apprehend the 
 most danger." He felt that he carried the House so completely 
 along with him, that he did not hesitate to ridicule the 
 " Laudean doctrine of the Divine right of Kings" and he thus 
 practically concluded : " You see your duty to yourselves and 
 the people, and that it is not really the interest of the House 
 of Commons, but may be the inclination of the Court, that you lose 
 the power of appeals. But I beg our House not to be feh 
 de se, but that your Lordships would take in this affair the 
 Only course to preserve yourselves, and appoint a day, this 
 day three weeks, for the hearing of this appeal." The 
 motion was carried by a large majority, and notice was served 
 on Sir John Fagg, M.P., to appear at the bar of the House on 
 the day appointed. An order was made at the same time 
 that the appellant and his counsel should have the protection 
 of the House/ 
 
 The Commons were instantly in a flame, and renewed all 
 the violent resolutions of the former session. Shaftesbury 
 followed up the blow by inducing Lord Mohun to move an 
 
 f i ParL Hist. 791. 
 
A.D. 1677. PROROGATION FOR FIFTEEN MONTHS. 1 03 
 
 address to dissolve the parliament, which had now sat four- 
 teen years, and could no longer be considered as justly repre- 
 senting the people. The Duke of York and the Catholic 
 Peers were so disgusted with Danby's ultra-Protestant policy, 
 that they joined Shaftesbury on this occasion ; the Minister 
 was out- voted by the Peers present, and by calling proxies 
 obtained only a majority of two. 
 
 A violent protest, drawn by Shaftesbury, against the re- 
 jection of the address, was entered next morning in the 
 Journals. Fifteen Peers had signed it, and others were pre- 
 paring to sign it, when the King made his appearance on the 
 throne, and at one blow prorogued parliament for the unex- 
 ampled period of one year and three months.^ 
 
 Shaftesbury was assailed by many pamphlets, imputing to 
 him the loss of the Test Bill, the quarrel about privilege, 
 and the distracted state of the country. One of them de- 
 scribed him as " a fairy fiend that haunted and deluded both 
 Houses." He brought an action of defamation against Lord 
 Digby, for saying to him at a county meeting, " You 
 are against the King, and for seditions and factious aid for 
 a Commonwealth, and, by God, we will have your head 
 next parliament," and he recovered a verdict with 1000/. 
 damages. 11 
 
 After this protracted and stormy recess, the same parlia- 
 ment again met (its 15th session) in February, 1677. ad lg77 
 The ground now seized by Shaftesbury was, that in 
 point of law the parliament must be taken to have been dis- 
 solved, and that there was no longer any lawful parliament in 
 existence. As soon as the King had withdrawn he put up 
 Buckingham to make this objection, and to deliver an argu- 
 ment he himself had prepared, " that a continuous prorogation 
 for more than a year was tantamount to a dissolution, by 
 virtue of the statutes 4 Ed. III. c. 14, and 36 Ed. III. c. 10, 
 which require that a parliament be holden every year once, and more 
 often if need be ; now, on the last prorogation, the present par- 
 liament could not meet within a year, — and as the King could 
 not be supposed to have meant to have put it out of his power 
 to obey the law, the just intendment was that he dissolved the 
 
 S 4 Pari. Hist. 803. damages, but that they considered Lord 
 
 h Juries were then sometimes much more Digby' s father (Karl of Bristol) was still 
 
 liberal, giving 100,000Z. in actions of defama- alive, Lord Digby had a very small estate in 
 
 tion and scan. mag. On this occasion the hand, and they did not wish to perpetuate a 
 
 foreman said, " they would have given larger feud between the two families." 
 
 VOL. IV. O 
 
194 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVIU. 
 
 old parliament, so that lie might within the year call a new 
 one as the law requires, — an intendment greatly strengthened 
 by the consideration that nearly seventeen years had elapsed 
 since this parliament had been elected, and that it would be 
 indecent to impute a design to the King to make it last 
 during his whole reign." 
 
 As soon as Buckingham sat down, a motion was made that 
 he be called to the bar for the insult which he had offered to the 
 House, and the Lord Keeper resorted to the miserable quibble, 
 that the words " if need be " override the whole clause, leaving 
 it to the King to consider whether there was any occasion 
 to call a parliament even once a year, — and went so far as to 
 hint at the doctrine that no act of parliament interfering with 
 the essential prerogative of the Crown in calling or dissolving- 
 parliaments is binding. Shaftesbury was in hopes of aid from 
 the Catholic Peers ; but they remaining silent, he was called 
 up, and he gallantly insisted that the individuals by whom he 
 was surrounded were no House of Parliament, and that no one 
 was bound to respect their proceedings, — treating with scorn 
 the Lord Keepers construction of the statute, and his uncon- 
 stitutional limitation of the supremacy of parliament, — "for 
 which the Lord Keeper ought to be called to the bar, instead 
 of the Duke of Buckingham." He was supported by Lords 
 Salisbury and Wharton. 
 
 After a debate of five hours it was resolved that Bucking- 
 ham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton should retract 
 their opinion, acknowledge that their conduct was "ill-ad- 
 vised," and beg pardon of the King and the House. Shaftesbury, 
 as the chief delinquent, was first commanded to submit, and, 
 on his refusal, was committed to the Tower " during the plea- 
 sure of the King and the House." There he lay above a year, 
 — and he could not recover his liberty without considerable hu- 
 miliation. 
 
 This was a bold but an imprudent move of the Ex-Chan- 
 cellor, for he might have foreseen that " a virtual dissolution " 
 would be highly distasteful to members of the House of Com- 
 mons, and not well relished by the Lords, so that the support 
 of it would place him at the mercy of his enemies. Bucking- 
 ham, Salisbury, and Wharton, who were committed along 
 with him, after an imprisonment of a few months, made their 
 submission and were discharged ; but he still disdained such a 
 course, and suing out a writ of habeas corpus before the Court 
 of King's Bench, he insisted that the commitment was illegal, 
 
A.D. 1677. COMMITTED TO THE TOWER. 105 
 
 ai d that he was entitled, as a matter of right, to be uncondi- 
 tionally set free, or at all events to be bailed. 
 
 It must have been a scene of considerable interest when an 
 Earl, an ex-Lord Chancellor, and the head of a great political 
 party was brought up in custody, and, after arguments from 
 his counsel, pleaded his own cause. He put very strongly 
 the objection that the warrant of commitment was bad, being 
 merely '• for high contempts against this House," without 
 specifying what the contempts were, so that he might have 
 been committed for something wholly frivolous, as the cut of 
 his beard, or something that he had done in the strict dis- 
 charge of his duty, — as obeying the process of the law — 
 which either House of parliament might construe into a con- 
 tempt. He powerfully urged that, as a warrant in this fomi 
 by the King or any other magistrate would bo void, there 
 could be no reason why we should bind our necks to the yoke 
 of assemblies established to protect — not to extinguish — our 
 liberties. To the taunt of the Attorney-General, that being 
 a Peer he should stand up for the privileges of the Peerage, 
 he said, "It is true I am a Peer, and no man hath a greater 
 reverence or esteem for the Lords than myself; but I hope 
 my being a Peer shall not lose my being an Englishman, or 
 make me to have less title to Magna Charta and the other 
 laws of English liberty. I desire your Lordships well to 
 consider what rule you make in my case, for it will be a 
 precedent that in future ages may concern eveiy man in 
 England." 
 
 Jtiainsford, C. J. — " This Court hath no jurisdiction of the 
 cause, and therefore the form of the return is not consider- 
 able. We ought not to extend our jurisdiction beyond its due 
 limits." ' 
 
 Shaftesbury was remanded, and found himself in " a false 
 position." He was, at first, visited by all the factious ; but 
 an order was made that no one should be admitted to 
 him without the King's express permission. He languished 
 in the Tower without any prospect of getting himself liberated, 
 and he had the mortification to learn that, meanwhile, in 
 his absence, things were marvellously quiet in the House 
 
 i 6 St. Tr. 1296. The precedent hitherto in this general form. Some observations were 
 
 has been respected. In the case of the made by the Court of King's Bench as to the 
 
 Sheriffs of Middlesex, which occurred when I impropriety of preventing them from seeing 
 
 was Attorney-General and a Member of the the true cause of commitment ; but they held 
 
 House of Commons, I settled the warrant of it sufficient, 
 commitment, and took care that it should be 
 
 o 2 
 
196 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXVIIL 
 
 of Lords, and that Danby was carrying every thing before 
 him. He in vain wrote spirited and pathetic letters to the 
 King and the Duke of York, appealing to their justice and 
 generosity. 
 
 At last, in February, 1678, he condescended to petition that 
 1678 ^ e might be brought to the bar to apologise for the 
 offence he had given. His application to the Court 
 of King's Bench was now represented as the great aggravation 
 of his crime, and Danby tried to shut him out from a hearing, 
 on account of some contemptuous words respecting the House 
 of Lords he was charged with then using — but the witness 
 called could not prove them. 
 
 On his knees was the "Patriot" compelled to repeat, after 
 the Lord Chancellor, the following mortifying palinode : "I, 
 Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, do acknowledge that my en- 
 deavouring to maintain that the parliament is dissolved was 
 an ill-advised action, for which I humbly beg the pardon of 
 the King's Majesty, and of this most Honourable House ; and 
 I do also acknowledge that my bringing of a habeas corpus in 
 the King's Bench was a high violation of your Lordships' 
 privileges, and a great aggravation of my former offence, for 
 which 1 likewise most humbly beg the pardon of this most 
 Honourable House." 
 
 The Lords, with white staves, were ordered to inform the 
 King that the House was satisfied, and Shaftesbury was 
 allowed to resume his seat. 
 
 During the short glimpse of power and favour which he 
 enjoyed two years after, he contrived by a vote of the House 
 of Lords to have all these proceedings condemned as unparlia- 
 mentary and unconstitutional, " and that the entry of them on 
 the Journals should be vacated, so that they might never be 
 drawn into precedent for the future." k 
 
 Upon his discharge, he found his influence very much 
 diminished. Danby, whose policy in the race for popularity 
 was to take the wind out of the sails of his competitor, had 
 gained great popularity with the Protestants. The marriage 
 of the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of 
 York and next in succession to the Crown, with the Prince 
 of Orange, now at the head of the Protestant interest in 
 Europe, had been followed up by the treaty of x>imeguen, 
 *vhich drew the Protestant states into closer amity, and placed 
 on a respectable footing the foreign relations of the country. 
 
 k Lords' Jour. Not 3. 1680. 
 
A.D. 1678. ORIGIN OF THE POPISH PLOT. 197 
 
 Shaftesbury resumed his opposition with vigour, but down to 
 the prorogation in the end of June, could find no opportunity 
 of seriously embarrassing the measures of the government 
 and he agitated against the Duke of York and the Papists with 
 little hope of ever again being the idol of a great party.™ 
 
 This was only a lull ; the hurricane soon burst forth ; 
 Shaftesbury directed it, — and he was more formidable than at 
 any former period of his career. 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXIX. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY TILL THE DISSOLU- 
 TION OF THE OXFORD PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The charge stoutly adduced against Shaftesbury of having 
 been the inventor of the Popish plot, and of having 
 suborned Titus Oates to bring it forward, is unsup- 
 ported by any reasonable evidence, and is, I think, wholly 
 unfounded ; but no one can deny that he early caught at this 
 delusion as an engine of annoyance to his adversaries, and 
 that he unscrupulously used it for his ambitious purposes, 
 regardless of the ruin which it brought on individuals, and of 
 the public calamities which it caused. As the monstrous im- 
 probability of the tale negatives the notion that he framed it, 
 so it prevents us from supposing that he believed in it. Yet 
 he pretended to give implicit credit to all its wildest fictions ; 
 he was mainly instrumental in propagating the general panic 
 on the opportune murder of Sir Edmonsbury Godfrey; he 
 joined in the cry that this worthy Protestant magistrate had 
 been assassinated by the Papists for having taken Oates's 
 evidence ; he suggested to the Londoners to prepare for the 
 defence of the City, as if a foreign enemy were at its gates ; 
 and he was supposed to have suggested to Sir Thomas Player, 
 the Chamberlain, the noted saying, " that were it not for these 
 precautions, all the Protestant citizens might rise next morning 
 with their throats cut." 
 
 On the meeting of parliament, Danby, that he might antici- 
 
 m 4 Pari. Hist. 977-KK4. 
 
198 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXJXIX 
 
 pate Shaftesbury, brought forward the subject of the Popish 
 plot in the Lords, contrary to the advice of the King, who said, 
 " You will find you have given the parliament a handle to 
 ruin yourself as well as to disturb all my affairs, and you will 
 surely live to repent it." Shaftesbury soon took the matter 
 entirely out of Danby's hands, and carried resolutions for a 
 committee to inquire into the horrible conspiracy, — for the 
 removal of Popish recusants from London, — for appointing the 
 train-bands of London and Westminster to be in readiness, — 
 for sending Lords Powis, Stafford, Arundel, Peters, and Bel- 
 lasis to the Tower, as Papists and ti'aitors, and for declaring 
 " that there hath been and still is a damnable and hellish plot 
 continued and carried on by Popish recusants for assassinating 
 the King, subverting the government, and rooting out and 
 destroying the Protestant religion." 11 He was chairman of the 
 Committee of the House of Lords for prosecuting the inquiry ; 
 and, superseding the government who wished to conduct it, 
 took the whole management of it into his own hands. He 
 was always at his post — receiving informations, granting war- 
 rants for searches and arrests, examining and committing pri- 
 soners, and issuing instructions to officers, informers, and 
 gaolers. He converted, with consummate art, every succeed- 
 ing occurrence into a confirmation of the plot, and by inflaming 
 the passions of the people was able to direct them at his 
 pleasure. From being lately nearly isolated as a party leader, 
 and somewhat contemned for his inglorious release from impri- 
 sonment, the popular delirium now placed him at the head of 
 a decided majority in both Houses, and the ministers were 
 allowed to remain in office only till it suited his purpose to 
 remove them. 
 
 The exorbitant power which he now enjoyed he grossly 
 abused. His first measure was the bill for a Test by which 
 Eoman Catholics should be excluded from sitting in either 
 House of Parliament. He began it in the House of Commons, 
 where it passed by acclamation. In the upper House there 
 was a strong feeling with many in favour of the Eoman 
 Catholic Peers, — men of undoubted honour and loyalty, — and 
 the representatives of the most illustrious families in England. 
 The bill likewise caused alarm as an attack on the hereditary 
 rights of the peerage; for if one class might be disqualified 
 from acting in their legislative capacity for adhering to the 
 religion of their ancestors, the same injustice might be done 
 
 n 4 Pari. Hist. 1C22. 
 
A.D. 1G78. CATHOLICS EXCLUDED FROM PARLIAMENT. 190 
 
 to others on some new pretext, and the whole body would 
 depend upon the arbitrary will of the minister, or the capri 
 cious tyranny of the multitude, prompted by an unprincipled 
 demagogue. 
 
 Shaftesbury overcame these obstacles by the fresh discoveries 
 of Titus Gates ; and a clause being introduced into the Bill for 
 excepting the Duke of York from its operation, it received the 
 royal assent. The injustice of this statute, which was passed 
 in a moment of delusion and violence, could not be remedied 
 for a period of 150 years; and still we continue to feel its 
 mischievous consequences. If our Eoman Catholic brethren 
 had been allowed to sit in parliament as they had continued 
 to do since the Reformation, the enmity between the followers 
 of the two religions would probably soon have died away, 
 and, all enjoying the same civil rights in England and in 
 Ireland, all might have been equally attached to the law and 
 constitution, and we might have escaped the discords and 
 jealousies which have long weakened the empire, and have 
 sometimes threatened its dismemberment. This statute, so 
 eagerly clung to by the pious and the orthodox as the safe- 
 guard of our religion, was undoubtedly the handywork of the 
 profligate and sceptical Shaftesbury. He ere long made some 
 compensation, by a law for securing personal liberty ; but in 
 estimating his merits, the disqualification of Roman Catholics 
 to sit in parliament must be considered a tremendous set-off 
 against " the Habeas Corpus Act." 
 
 The factious leader further moved in the House of Lords 
 for an address to the King to remove the Duke of York from 
 his presence and councils. This was defeated by James 
 getting up in his place and declaring that he had already 
 ceased to be a member of the Privy Council ; — whereupon the 
 candid and virtuous Lord Russell was induced to withdraw a 
 similar motion, which, from the purest motives, he had made 
 in the Commons. p 
 
 To show the versatility of his powers, in the midst of these 
 violent struggles he calmly delivered as Ex-Chancellor, a cha- 
 racter he felt it for his influence to maintain, a long and 
 learned argument on the question argued at the bar in the 
 Viscount Purbeck's case, "whether a peerage can be sur- 
 rendered to the King ? " He contended that Hommrs are not 
 within the statute de Donis, and that the heir to the peerage 
 could only lose his right by forfeiture, although tlae law of 
 
 30 Car. 2, st. 2. 4 Pari. Hist. 1034. 4 Pari. Hist. 1025. 
 
200 LOIiD CHANCELLOR SHAFTE.BURY. Chap. LXXX1X. 
 
 
 
 Scotland upon this subject was different. The House was 
 guided by his opinions 
 
 The trials now began — the most disgraceful in our judicial 
 history — against those accused of being implicated in the 
 Popish plot. Shaftesbury had only to look quietly on while 
 Judge Scioggs and demented juries were eager to credit per- 
 jury, that they might convict innocent men whom they had 
 prejudged. 
 
 Some victims being offered up to feed the popular fury, it 
 was thought full time that Danby, the Lord Treasurer, should 
 be precipitated from power. Montague, the ambassador at 
 Paris, arrived as a useful ally, and disclosing the secret nego- 
 tiations with the court of France, a motion was carried in 
 the House of Commons for Danby's impeachment for high 
 treason. The King during some time stood by his minister, 
 and, to procure him a respite, dissolved the parliament, that 
 he might get rid of a House of Commons which, having sat 
 nearly eighteen j^ears, had entirely altered its character, and 
 from being the most obsequious to the Court, had become 
 one of the most formidable that had ever been assembled, — 
 notwithstanding the notorious bribery practised to corrupt its 
 members/ 
 
 The state of the Exchequer rendered a parliament indis- 
 pensable, and a new one was called, to meet in forty 
 days. Shaftesbury was indefatigable in superintend- 
 ing the elections, and, as might easily have been anticipated, 
 from the present ferment in the public mind, they turned out 
 decidedly in his favour. Danby thought to avert the storm 
 which was pending over him, by contriving that, before the 
 opening of the session, the Duke of York should withdraw to 
 Brussels ; but the Court was beaten in the choice of a Speaker, 
 and the King resorted to the ungracious exercise of the prero- 
 gative, of disallowing the Speaker elected by a majority of the 
 House. 
 
 The impeachment was immediately revived. To stop it, a 
 pardon was granted to the minister, to which the King affixed 
 the Great Seal with his own hand; but Shaftesbury main- 
 tained the doctrine, that a pardon cannot be pleaded in bar 
 to a parliamentary impeachment, so as to prevent inquiry and 
 sentence, although, after sentence, the Crown may remit the 
 punishment. The Lords yielded to this doctrine, and issued 
 a warrant to arrest the Earl of Danby. Upon this he 
 
 1 Shower's Pari. Cases, p. 1. r 4 Pari. Hist. 1074. 
 
A.D.1679. SIR W. TEMPLE'S PLAN OF GOVERNMENT. 201 
 
 absconded ; and a bill was passed to attaint him, unless he 
 should surrender. He did surrender, and Shaftesbury had 
 the gratification of seeing his adversary sent off to the Tower 
 on a capital charge. 
 
 To leave the Court no breathing-time, he made a motion in 
 the Lords, for a committee of the whole House " on the state 
 of the nation," which he prefaced with a most inflammatory 
 speech, in his peculiar style, on the danger to the Protestant 
 faith : 
 
 " c We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts ; what shall we do 
 for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for f If she be a wall, 
 we will build on her a palace of silver ; if she be a door, we will inclose 
 her with boards of cedar.' We have several little sisters without 
 breasts, — the French Protestant churches ; the two kingdoms of 
 Ireland and Scotland. The foreign Protestants are a wall, the only 
 wall and defence of England ; upon it you may build palaces of silver, 
 glorious palaces. The protection of the Protestants abroad is the 
 greatest power and security the Crown of England can attain to, and 
 which alone can help us to give check to the growing greatness of 
 France. Scotland and Ireland are two doors, either to let in good or 
 mischief upon us ; they are much weakened by the artifice of our 
 cunning; enemies, and we ought to inclose them with boards of cedar. 
 Popery and slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand ; and sometimes 
 one goes first, sometimes the other ; but wheresoever the one enters, the 
 other is always following close at hand. In England, Popery was to 
 have brought in slavery ; in Scotland, slavery went before, and Popery 
 was to follow." 8 
 
 Charles, without a minister, had sent for Sir William Temple, 
 who produced a new-invented plan of government, — very 
 plausible, — but wholly inconsistent with our parliamentary 
 constitution, which requires that the King shall have advisers 
 possessing the confidence of the two Houses, and that when 
 they lose that confidence they shall be changed. Temple re- 
 commended a permanent council, to the number of thirty, 
 taken from different parties and ranks, fifteen being with, and 
 fifteen without office ; — great property being an indispensable 
 qualification ; — and that the King having no prime minister, 
 should consult them on all affairs of state, and be governed 
 by their opinion. Charles, in his present difficulties, agreed 
 to try the experiment, and himself proposed that Shaftes- 
 bury should be a member of the new council. Against this 
 
 8 4 Pari. Hist. 1116. It is said that 30,oof copies of this speech were printed aDd cir- 
 culated in a few days after it was delivered 
 
202 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXIX, 
 
 Temple strongly remonstrated. The King said, lie miglir be 
 dangerous as a friend ; but lie was now irresistible as a 
 foe. Shaftesbury being sounded, consented to join the new 
 government, on the condition that he was President of the all- 
 directing Council. This was consented to, and he was sworn 
 in accordingly. 
 
 The King in person informed the two Houses that he had 
 established a new Privy Council, not to exceed thirty ; that 
 he had made choice of such persons as were worthy and able 
 to advise him, and was resolved in all his weighty and im- 
 portant affairs, next to the advice of his great Council in par- 
 liament, to be guided by this Privy Council. 1 
 
 Being installed as Lord President of the new-fangled Board, 
 Shaftesbury was presented to the public as the most prominent 
 member of the government. But he felt that he had only the 
 appearance of power ; that he could not rely upon the Court ; 
 that he was marked out for vengeance by the Duke of York ; 
 and that the proclamation of this Prince — as inheritor of the 
 throne, if that event should ever happen, would be his death- 
 warrant. He seems now deliberately to have taken up the 
 plan which had probably often previously presented itself to 
 his imagination, of setting up the Duke of Monmouth as heir 
 apparent, on the ground that there had been a contract of 
 marriage between the King and Lucy Walters. Notwith- 
 standing Charles's solemn denial of any such contract, a hope 
 was entertained that he would acquiesce in the scheme, from 
 his affection for his son and his regard for his own ease. 
 
 Shaftesbury felt that success was to be obtained only from 
 the continuance of his personal popularity. This had not been at 
 all impaired by his unexpected elevation, which was considered 
 the triumph of the people, and which he construed into a 
 proof that the King in his heart would be pleased with his 
 brother's exclusion, and the legitimation of Monmouth. To 
 retain his influence with the multitude, on which alone he 
 could depend, he still worked the plot as ingeniously as ever, 
 and encouraged the new discoveries and the new prosecutions 
 which marked its frightful progress; although Charles not 
 only treated with scorn the attempt to implicate the Queen, 
 but" in private manfully declared his conviction that the whole 
 
 * Of this most aristocratic body twenty Crown. The annual income of the thirty was 
 
 were members of the House of Lords, and of estimated at 300,000?., and 'hat of the Houso 
 
 the remaining ten, several were the eldest of Commons at 400.000Z. 
 vwis of peers, or men in office under the 
 
A. a 1679. AUTHOR OF THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT. 203 
 
 was; a fabrication. The Ex-Chancellor likewise still assidu- 
 ously cultivated his connection with . the City. He lived in 
 Thanet House, in Aldersgate Street ; he declared his resolu- 
 tion to offer himself as a candidate for the office of Lord 
 Mayor, and was pleased in the mean time to be addressed by 
 his sobriquet of " Alderman Shaftesbury," — Buckingham 
 being his brother citizen, and intriguing with him in the 
 Court of Aldermen, in the Common Council, and in every 
 Wardmote." 
 
 But to establish his reputation on a permanent basis, he 
 happily completed a reform, which almost makes his name 
 respectable, notwithstanding all his follies and all his crimes. 
 The personal liberty of the subject, the first end of good go- 
 vernment, was yet very insecure in England. The common 
 law declared that no man could be lawfully imprisoned, except 
 upon a warrant specifying the crime of which he was accused, 
 and that every man accused should be speedily brought to 
 trial, — but had not provided any adequate remedy ; and these 
 salutary principles were constantly violated, by commitments 
 in the name of the King in Council, by sending prisoners to 
 distant gaols, by omitting to put their names in the calendar 
 on a gaol delivery, by refusing writs for producing before the 
 judges persons illegally imprisoned, and by gaolers disobey- 
 ing such writs when they were sued out. Shaftesbury had 
 several times attempted in vain to remedy such abuses ; and 
 he now, with admirable skill, framed a statute, by which per- 
 sonal liberty has been more effectually guarded in England 
 than it has ever been in any other country in the world. 
 This he caused to be introduced in the House of Commons, 
 where it was generally supported. But a strong opposition 
 to it was concerted in the House of Lords. Although avow- 
 edly the measure of the Lord President, all the weight of 
 the Court was exerted against it, and several amendments 
 were introduced in the Committee with a view of defeating 
 it, under the belief that the Commons would not agree to 
 them. The third reading is said to have been carried by an 
 accident. According to Bishop Burnet, " Lords Grey and 
 Norris were named to be tellers. Lord Norris being a man 
 subject to vapours, was not at all times attentive to what he 
 was doing. So a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted 
 him for ten, as a jest, at first ; but seeing Lord Norris had not 
 observed it, he went on with his misreckoning of ten, so it 
 
 u Mem. James II. 65"\. 
 
204 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap LXXXIX. 
 
 was reported to the House, and declared that they who were 
 for the bill were the majority, though it indeed went on tho 
 other side." x 
 
 The majority being declared from the woolsack in favour 
 of the bill, Shaftesbury perceived a great commotion among 
 the courtiers at a result so little expected on either side. With 
 much presence of mind he instantly started on his legs, and 
 after speaking near an hour, during which many members 
 entered and left the House, concluded with a motion on some 
 indifferent subject. It was now impossible that the House could 
 be retold, and no farther question could be made upon the 
 bill in the Lords. There was a strong hope that the Com- 
 mons would disagree to the amendments, — upon which they 
 had to determine at a ■*' conference," while the King was 
 coming to put an end to the session. But they at last waived 
 all their objections ; and Shaftesbury, who managed the con- 
 ference for the Lords, — before the King entered, reported that 
 " the bill had been delivered back closed up and perfected." 
 Charles being seated on the throne, the title of it was read, 
 along with several others, and the words " Le Roy le voet " being 
 pronounced, it for ever became law. y 
 
 The prorogation was hurried by the progress in the House 
 of Commons of the Bill for excluding the Duke of York from 
 the succession to the Crown, which, by a large majority, had 
 been there read a second time. This bill, which Shaftesbury 
 openly countenanced, paved the way for Monmouth's pre- 
 
 x In the Oxford edition of Burnet's His- quent excitement of the Popish plot. Shaftes- 
 
 tory, there is the following note by Speaker bury's attention had been particularly drawn 
 
 Onslow: "See minute-book of the House of to the subject from the charges brought 
 
 Lords with regard to this bill, and compare against Lord Clarendon, and from his own 
 
 there the number of Lords that day in the imprisonments. He had introduced bills 
 
 House, with the number reported to be in the which partially met the evils complained of 
 
 division, which agrees with the story.— 0." in 1668,1670, 1674, and 1675. The final mea- 
 
 There must certainly have been some mis- sure, carried in 1679, was long called " Lord 
 
 take, accidental or wilful, for the num- Shaftesbury's Act."— Life of Shaftesbury, iL 
 
 bers were declared to be 57 to 55 ; and by 221. 
 
 the minute-book of the Lords it appears that James II., in the true spirit of tyranny, to 
 there were only 107 peers in the House. We his dying day thought this one of the worst 
 must suppose that before the Lord Chancellor acts ever passed. "It was a great mis- 
 was aware of the mistake, he had put the fortune to the people," says he, " as well as 
 additional motion, " that this bill do pass," to the Crown, the passing of the Habeas 
 and that it had been agreed to as a matter of Corpus Act, since it obliges the Crown to 
 course after the division. keep a greater force on foot to preserve the 
 
 y 31 Car. 2, c. 2. It is a common saying, government, and encourages disaffected, tur- 
 
 without any foundation, that Jenkes's case bulent, and unquiet spirits to carry on their 
 
 produced the Habeas Corpus Act. His illegal wicked designs: it was contrived by the Karl 
 
 imprisonment occurred in 1666 (6 St. Tr. of Shaftesbury to that effect."— Life, vol. ii. 
 
 I 190), and had been forgotten in the subse- 621. 
 
A.D. 1679. MEASURES TO PREVENT HIS ASCENDENCY. 205 
 
 tensions, by enacting that on the death or resignation of his 
 present Majesty, the Duke of York should not inherit the 
 crown ; and that if he landed in England he should be 
 attainted. The apparent object was merely to let in the 
 Princess Mary and the Princess Anne ; but Shaftesbury ex- 
 pected, that if the King's brother, who had long been con- 
 sidered next heir, could be set aside, there would be little 
 difficulty in bringing forward the youth in whose name he 
 intended to govern. Over the existing House of Commons he 
 had a complete control, and he had been able to carry the 
 most important questions against all the influence of the 
 Court in the House of Lords. 
 
 But Charles dreaded his ascendency, and, forgetting his 
 promise to do nothing without the advice of his new Council, 
 resorted to the prorogation without consulting any one, ex- 
 cept the Lord Keeper, Essex, and Halifax. Shaftesbury con- 
 sidered himself secure while this House of Commons remained, 
 — which he thought in no danger, as it had sat little more 
 than twelve months, while the last preceding House of Com- 
 mons had existed near eighteen years. 
 
 The prorogation had been to the 14th of August ; and he 
 indiscreetly boasted of the measures he shoidd then bring for- 
 ward, and was sure to carry, to crush his opponents. \\ hat 
 then must have been his astonishment, when sitting one day 
 as President of the Council, the King suddenly turning to the 
 Chancellor, ordered him. to prepare a proclamation for the 
 dissolution of the present and the calling of another parlia- 
 ment, — whereupon the Council immediately broke up, with- 
 out any opportunity having been given for deliberation or 
 remonstrance ! This was the result of a secret consultation 
 which the King had held with Sunderland and Temple, who 
 thought a more dangerous House of Commons could not be 
 elected, and that delay gave some hope of reaction. ^\ hen 
 Shaftesbury had left the council-chamber, he passionately 
 swore " that he would have the head of the man who had 
 given such advice." 
 
 He had presently to watch the elections for the House of 
 Commons, which turned out as favourably as he could desire ; 
 and he looked forward with impatience to the first day of a 
 new session ; but he was again confounded, while sitting in 
 council, by the King ordering the Chancellor to prepare a 
 Commission for the prorogation of parliament for a twelve- 
 month. The members not in the secret gazed on each othet 
 
205 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXIX 
 
 with signs of wonder, and the President rose to speak ; but 
 Charles commanded silence, saying, " he had foreseen and 
 weighed every objection, and that having taken his resolution 
 he would be obeyed." He was emboldened to take this deci- 
 sive part by a secret treaty with France, by which, in con- 
 sideration of preventing the meeting of the English parlia- 
 ment, he received a bribe of a million of livres. 
 
 Shaftesbury was immediately removed from his office of Pre- 
 sident, and his name was struck out of the list of Privy Coun- 
 cillors. Lord Eussell, and the other popular leaders, seeing 
 that the Council was not consulted in matters of the highest 
 moment, resigned their seats in it, acknowledged Shaftesbury 
 as their chief, and organised a regular opposition to the 
 government. The names of " the Court and Country parties " 
 gave way to other appellations, at first used in derision, and 
 afterwards proudly adopted by those to whom they were 
 applied, — and the grand struggle began between the Tories 
 and the Whigs. The former consisted chiefly of the old 
 Cavaliers and High Churchmen, who stood up for passive 
 obedience and the divine right of kings ; the latter, of more 
 moderate Churchmen, with many dissenters, who insisted that 
 government was established for the welfare of the governed. 2 
 The Whigs had among them some men of pure patriotism, 
 as well as great talents ; but their cause was for a long time 
 tainted by the reckless Shaftesbury, who pretended to adopt 
 their principles, while he cared for nothing but the gratifi- 
 cation of his own ambition. His chief object now was to keep 
 up an excitement in the public mind till parliament should 
 meet. 
 
 On the 5th of November, he had a grand gunpowder-ptot 
 procession, headed by Guy Fawkes, to keep up a horror of the 
 Papists ; but this was nothing to a new pageant he got up for 
 the 17th of November, the anniversary of the accession of that 
 Protestant princess Queen Elizabeth. First appeared a beU- 
 man with a slow and solemn pace, exclaiming at intervals, in a 
 sepulchral tone, " Eemember Godfrey!" next came a repre- 
 sentation of the body of the murdered magistrate borne by one 
 habited like a Jesuit; then followed nuns, monks, priests, 
 Catholic bishops in copes and mitres, Protestant bishops in 
 
 1 The two parties, always being distin- —at starting, the Tories favouring them, and 
 
 guished by their respective devotion to pre- the Whigs persecuting them ; while many 
 
 rogative and to liberty, exchanged sentiments years before the Roman Catholic Relief Bill 
 
 on several points, and on none more strikingly passed, tney were supported by the Whigs 
 
 than their feeling towards Roman Catholics, and discountenanced by the Tories. 
 
A.D. 1630. RECALLS MONMOUTH. 207 
 
 lawn sleeves, six Cardinals with their red hats, and, last of 
 all, the Pope in a litter, attended by " Arch-C hancellor the 
 Devil." The procession having marched through the city at 
 night amidst the glare of several thousand flambeaux, the 
 whole population turning out to witness it and to call down ven- 
 geance on the heads of those who paid homage to the Scarlft 
 Lady, halted at Temple Bar, — when at a concerted signal the 
 Pope and his attendants were precipitated into the flames 
 with a shout, "the echo of which," according to the account 
 published by Shaftesbury's orders, "reached by continued 
 reverberations to Scotland, and France, and Eome itself, 
 damping them all with dreadful astonishment." This exhibi 
 tion was so much applauded, that the contriver of it had it 
 repeated the two following years with additional embellish- 
 ments and enormous effect. 
 
 Elated with the certain prospect of carrying his plan for 
 changing the succession, he soon after recalled Monmouth 
 from Brussels, where the son of Lucy "Walters had been living 
 in a sort of roval exile. On the voting man's arrival, the bells 
 were rung, bonfires were kindled, and the city was illumi- 
 nated. Charles, on his refusal to quit the kingdom, deprived 
 him of all his employments ; but he still went about receiving 
 the homage of the mob. Shaftesbury factiously defended his 
 obstinacy, on the pretence that "as a dutiful son. he was 
 bound either to preserve the King's life from the daggers of 
 the Papists, or to revenge his death, if he should fall by their 
 treason." 
 
 Pamphlets were written under Shaftesbury's superintend- 
 ence, pointing out the horrors of a Popish successor, ad 16so 
 recommending Monmouth in preference, for his re- 
 ligion, his conduct, and his courage, and suggesting that the 
 objection to his title should not be regarded, as "the worst 
 title makes the best king," and "what the prince wants in 
 right, he must supply by concession." 
 
 He obtained petitions to the King for the speedy meeting of 
 parliament from almost every county and town in England ; 
 but some of these were presented in such a tumultuary way as 
 to cause great alarm, and to induce an apprehension that there 
 was to be a renewal of civil war. 
 
 The Duke of York having returned from Scotland, and 
 having met with rather a cordial reception in the City, 
 Shaftesbury, to keep up the worship of his idol, propagated 
 rumours that the King only denied his marriage with Lucy 
 
208 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXOL 
 
 Walters from pride, that the witnesses to the ceremony were 
 still alive, and that the contract itself, enclosed in a black box, 
 had been intrusted by the late Bishop of Durham to the custody 
 of his son-in-law, Sir Gilbert Gerard, who had it ready to pro- 
 duce before parliament. 
 
 Finally, he resorted to the daring expedient of prosecuting 
 the King's brother, and the heir presumptive to the throne, 
 as a Popish recusant. In Trinity Term, 1680, he proceeded 
 to Westminster Hall, in company with the Earl of Huntingdon, 
 Lord Grey of Werke, Lord Gerard of Brandon, Lord Russell, 
 Lord Cavendish, and several other persons of high rank ; he 
 appeared before the Grand Jury for the County of Middlesex 
 in the Court of King's Bench, — and in due form submitted to 
 them " a presentment against his Royal Highness James 
 Duke of York, as a Popish recusant," — whereby it was alleged 
 the defendant had forfeited two thirds of his property, and 
 was liable to divers other heavy penalties and disabilities. 
 Six reasons or grounds were offered, in a separate document, 
 as proof of the charge. To excite still greater alarm at 
 Whitehall, he publicly asserted before the Grand Jury that 
 the Duchess of Portsmouth should likewise be indicted as a 
 national nuisance. 
 
 The attempt for the present was defeated by the Judges 
 very irregularly discharging the Grand Jury, while they 
 were deliberating ; but it produced a great effect all over the 
 nation. There could be no doubt that, according to the 
 statutes then in force, the Duke was liable to the prosecution, 
 which might be at any time renewed ; and Shaftesbury having 
 committed himself in mortal strife with the next heir to the 
 Crown, had shown that he had nerve to take any advantage 
 which the law might offer him, without regard to conse- 
 quences. The Duke was immediately ordered to return to 
 Edinburgh ; while Monmouth made a progress through the 
 provinces, — visiting the most celebrated fairs, races, and 
 assemblies of amusement. On these occasions he was much 
 admired for his fine person and courteous manners, and, with- 
 out putting forth any distinct claims, he was addressed as 
 " His Highness," and was generally received as the King's le- 
 gitimate son. 
 
 2s early a year and a half had elapsed since parliament was 
 summoned, and its meeting could not be longer delaved. In 
 the House of Commons, Shaftesbury's supremacy was un- 
 shaken ; but in the Lords he was looked upon with suspicion 
 
A.D. 1680. RESOLUTIONS AGAINST THE DUKE OF YORK. 209 
 
 and alarm, on account of the violence of his recent proceed- 
 ings. He planned the campaign with his usual skill. After 
 several votes in support of the right of petitioning, and con- 
 demning the efforts of the government to crush it, he brought 
 forward Da no erfi eld and his "Narrative," to frighten the 
 isle from its propriety ; and then he obtained resolutions of 
 the House of Commons, which no one ventured to oppose : 
 " That it is the opinion of this House that parliament ought 
 to proceed effectually to suppress Popery, and to prevent 
 a Popish succession : " " That the Duke of York being a 
 Papist, the hopes of his coming to the Crown have given the 
 greatest countenance and encouragement to the present de- 
 signs and conspiracies against the King and the Protestant 
 religion : " " That in defence of the King's person and go- 
 vernment, and Protestant religion, this House doth declare 
 they will stand by his Majesty with their lives and fortunes ; 
 and that if his Majesty should come to any violent death, 
 which God forbid, they will revenge it to the utmost on the 
 Papists." a 
 
 On this foundation he ordered the Exclusion Bill to be 
 again introduced. 
 
 The bill passed rapidly through the House of Commons ; 
 and, on the 1 5th of November, was brought up by Lord 
 Russell to the House of Lords, amidst loud cheers from 
 members below the bar. Here was to be the mortal struggle. 
 The King warmly espoused the cause of his brother, openly 
 canvassed for votes in his favour, and himself attended the 
 debates upon it, — showing his inclination by significant 
 looks and loud whispers while Peers were addressing the 
 House. 
 
 Shaftesbury, nothing daunted, unflinchingly supported his 
 bill ; and, after showing the absurdity of indefeasible here- 
 ditary right, — the well-settled authority of parliament to alter 
 the succession to the Crown, — the repugnancy of the Romish 
 religion to our constitution, — the violent temper and bigotry 
 of the Duke, — the certain overthrow of our liberties, as well 
 as our religion, if he should ever mount the throne, — and the 
 superiority of the remedy of setting him aside, to that of 
 limiting his powers, as had been proposed, — he turned towards 
 the Bishops, of whom he was most distrustful, and, in a 
 pathetic tone, implored them to have a regard to the civil 
 rights of their fellow-subjects, and to the best interests of the 
 
 a 4 Pari. Hist. 1162. 
 VOL. IV. P 
 
210 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXOL 
 
 Church of which they were the fathers,— reminding them that 
 they then had it in their power to exclude a Popish Prince 
 by law, and thereby preserve their religion and liberties ; but 
 that, if they should lose the present opportunity, they must 
 afterwards either run into rebellion to save themselves, or sit 
 down with the melancholy portion of bondage, ignominy, and 
 repentance. 
 
 He was answered by Lord Halifax, who displayed an extent 
 of capacity and a force of eloquence which had never been sur- 
 passed in that assembly. This aspiring orator was animated 
 by the greatness of the occasion, by the presence of the King, 
 and by a rivalship with his uncle Shaftesbury, whom, during 
 that day's debate, he for the first time eclipsed. He seems 
 with much felicity to have ridiculed the hypocritical ambition 
 of Monmouth, who had spoken in support of the bill, on the 
 ground that it was necessary to protect the King's life ; b and, 
 without saying any thing personally offensive, to have ad- 
 mirably developed the arts, intrigues, and objects of the leader 
 of the Exclusionists. After a debate which lasted till near 
 midnight, the bill was thrown out by a majority of sixty-three 
 to thirty, proxies not being called. 
 
 Shaftesbury was no doubt actuated by the most factious and 
 unworthy motives ; but I must nevertheless give my humble 
 opinion that the bill was a constitutional proceeding. James's 
 conduct as king, and the Eevolution of 1688, amply excused 
 its defenders. 
 
 This defeat did not quell the courage of the great agitator, 
 conscious of the power he still possessed in the House of Com- 
 mons and in the country. A few days after there was a com- 
 mittee on a supply bill, which he strongly opposed. He 
 printed and published his Eeply, which, if its accuracy may 
 be relied upon, shows that he indulged in the most cutting 
 i63i P ersonaL iti es against the King, who was one of his 
 hearers. A few specimens may be amusing : — 
 
 " My Lords, this noble Lord near me hath found fault with that 
 precedent which he supposes 1 offered to your Lordships concerning the 
 chargeable ladies at Court. I remember no such thing, I said. But if 
 I must speak of them, I shall say as the prophet did to King Saul — 
 1 What meaneth this bleating of the cattle ? ' and I hope the King will 
 make the same answer, — • TJiat he reserves thim for sacrifice, ami 
 
 h Charles, at this expression, exclaimed in c All the bishops present, fourteen in iiuid- 
 a suu;e whisper, " The kiss of Judas ! " ber, voted against it. 
 
A.D. 1681. HIS BILL TO DISSOLVE KING'S MARRIAGE. 211 
 
 means to deliver them up to please his people ; ' for there must, be, in 
 plain English, my Lords, a change. We must neither have a Popish 
 favourite, nor Popish mistress, nor Popish counsellor at Court. What 
 I spoke was about another lady, that belongs not to the Court, but, like 
 Sempronia in Catiline's conspiracy, does more mischief than Cethegus." 
 — " My Lords, it is a very hard thing to say we cannot trust the King, 
 and that we have already been deceived so often, that we see plainly the 
 apprehension of discontent is no argument at Court ; and though our 
 Prince be himself an excellent person, that the people have the greatest 
 inclinations to love, yet I must say he is such an one as no story affords 
 us a parallel of." — " The transactions between him and his brother are 
 admirable and incomprehensible. The match with a Portugal lady, not 
 likely to have children, was contrived by the Duke's father-in-law, and 
 no sooner effected, but the Duke and his party make proclamation 
 to the world that we are like to have no children, and that he must be 
 the certain heir. He takes his seat in parliament as Prince of Wales, — 
 has his guards about him, — the Prince's lodgings at Whitehall, — his 
 guards on the same floor, without any interposition between him and 
 the King. This Prince changes his religion to make himself a party, 
 and such a party that his brother must be sure to die or be made away 
 with to make room for him." — " The prorogations, the dissolutions, the 
 cutting short of parliaments — not suffering them to have time to look 
 into any thing, have showed what reason we have for confidence in the 
 Court. We are now come to a parliament again, — by what fate or 
 riddle, I cannot guess." — " The Duke is sent away ; the House of 
 Commons have brought up a bill to disable him of the Crown ; and I 
 think they are, so far, extremely in the right : but your Lordships are 
 wiser than I, and have rejected it. Yet you have thought fit, and the 
 King himself hath made the proposition, to adopt such expedients as 
 shall render him but a nominal prince." — " However, we know who 
 hears us ; and I am glad of this, that your Lordships have dealt so 
 honourably and so clearly in the King's presence, that he cannot say he 
 wants a right state of things. He hath it before him, and may take 
 counsel as he thinks fit." d 
 
 His next move was to lay on the table of the House of Lords, 
 " A Bill to dissolve the King's marriage with Catherine ot 
 Portugal," which he thought might breed a quarrel between 
 the two royal brothers, and greatly embarrass the ministers. 
 In introducing the bill, he professed the most profound re- 
 spect for the monarchy, and deep reverence for the Protestant 
 religion, — describing this measure as the only means for saving 
 both, by enabling his Majesty to marry a Protestant princess, 
 by whom he might have legitimate issue, and thus to exclude 
 
 <* I cannot help suspecting that in the have spoken without being sent to tne 
 Keport which he published of this speech he Tower.— See Life, by Martyn, ii. 252. 
 Introduced several things which he could not 
 
 p 2 
 
212 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXIX. 
 
 a Pjpisn successor without violating the usual rule of succes- 
 sion to the Crown, which a majority of their Lordships deemed 
 so sacred. Charles, however, with a fairness and firmness 
 which should make us look with lenience at some of his 
 errors, declared that he would never consent to the disgrace of 
 an innocent woman, and openly canvassed the Peers against 
 the bill, — so that Shaftesbury, seeing that he was likely to have 
 a smaller minority upon it than upon the Exclusion Bill, post- 
 poned the consideration of it, on different pretences, from 
 time to time, and never brought it to a second reading. 6 
 
 But he was abundantly active in the House of Commons, 
 where a large majority was at his beck. He caused several 
 bills to be introduced there, the original draughts of which are 
 still extant in his handwriting, — one, to revive the Triennial 
 Act, which had been so improperly repealed by Lord Claren- 
 don, — a second, to enact that the Judges should hold their 
 offices quamdiu se bene gesserint, — a third, to make the levying 
 of money without consent of parliament high treason, — and a 
 fourth, to constitute an association for the safety of his Ma- 
 jesty's person, for defence of the Protestant religion, and pre- 
 venting the Duke of York or any Papist from succeeding to 
 the Crown. None of these met with any serious opposition in 
 the Lower House. 
 
 Next, he carried an impeachment against Lord Chief Justice 
 Scroggs, for illegally discharging the Grand Jury of the 
 County of Middlesex, while they were deliberating on the 
 indictment he had preferred against the Duke of York as a 
 Popish recusant; and he instituted proceedings against the 
 Lord Chief Justice North, and Jeffreys the Eecorder of 
 London, for interfering with the right of petitioning/ 
 
 The severe chastisement he had received from his nephew 
 Lord Halifax rankled deeply in his mind, and he caused a 
 motion to be made in the Commons for an address to the King 
 to remove this nobleman from his presence and councils for 
 ever. The attempt to defeat it only showed the weakness of 
 the Court, for an adjournment of the debate, moved by Hali- 
 fax's friends, was negatived by a majority of 219 to 95 ; and 
 the address was then carried without a division. AVhen the 
 Committee appointed to draw up the address made their re- 
 port, the ministerialists unexpectedly rallied, and were in 
 hopes by a manoeuvre to reject it ; but the debate was kept up 
 till .Shaftesbury's adherents arrived in great numbers, and it 
 
 e James's Memoirs, i 618. Macpherson, i. 100. 4 Pari. Hist. 1224, 12G1, 1-74. 
 
A.D. 1681. OXFORD PARLIAMENT SUMMONED. 213 
 
 was then agreed to by a majority of 213 to 101 . They did not 
 venture to ask the Lords to concur ; but the King, by the advice 
 of the Earl of Halifax, having returned for answer, " that he doth 
 not find the grounds in the address to be sufficient for removing 
 the Earl of Halifax," Shaftesbury got the Commons to pass 
 fresh resolutions, " That there is no security for the Protestant 
 religion, the King's life, or government of this nation, without 
 passing a bill for disabling James Duke of York to inherit the 
 imperial crown of this realm;" — "That until such a bill do 
 pass, this House cannot give any supply to his Majesty ;" — and 
 " That George Earl of Halifax, having advised his Majesty 
 against such a bill, has given pernicious counsel to his Ma- 
 jesty, as a promoter of Popery, and is an enemy to the King 
 and kingdom." A sudden termination to the session being 
 now apprehended, these were soon backed by resolutions, 
 " That whoever advised his Majesty to prorogue parliament is 
 a betrayer of the King, the Protestant religion, and of the 
 kingdom of England, a promoter of the French interest, and a 
 pensioner to France ;" — " That whoever shall lend any money 
 on the revenue arising from customs or excise, or accept or 
 pay any tally in anticipation of the public revenue, shall be 
 considered a hinderer of the sitting of parliament, and respon- 
 sible to parliament for the same ;" — " That the city of London 
 was burnt by the Papists in 1666, for the introduction of 
 Popery and arbitrary power;" and, — "That his Majesty 
 should be addressed to restore the Duke of Monmouth to the 
 offices of which he had been deprived by the influence of the 
 Duke of York." 
 
 The last resolution had scarcely been put when the Black 
 Rod knocked at the door, and commanded the Commons forth- 
 with to attend his Majesty in the House of Lords, where a 
 prorogation was announced, which was, in a few days, fol- 
 lowed up by a dissolution, and a summons for a new parlia- 
 ment to assemble at Oxford. g 
 
 Shaftesbury immediately penned a petition to the King, 
 which was signed by sixteen Peers, attributing the choice of 
 Oxford to the counsels of wicked men, favourers of Popery, 
 promoters of French interests, and enemies to the happiness 
 of England, as in such a place the two Houses would be de- 
 prived of freedom of debate, and exposed to the swords of the 
 Papists who had crept into the iauks of the King's guards. 
 Many addresses of thanks were presented to the Peers who 
 
 g 4 Pari. Hist. 1175-1295. 
 
214 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXIX. 
 
 signed it. Halifax, equally active, published a pamphlet, en- 
 titled "A seasonable Address to both Houses of Parliament 
 concerning the Succession, the Fears of Popery and arbitrary 
 Government," — insinuating very plainly that the two gieat 
 pillars of the Protestant religion, Shaftesbury and Bucking- 
 ham, had no religion at all, and broadly asserting that the 
 former had only a few months before offered his services to 
 the Duke of York if he might be restored to the office of Lord 
 Chancellor. 
 
 The City of London began with returning its four former 
 popular members by an immense majority, and instructing 
 them to adhere to their illustrious fellow-citizen, who had 
 proved himself the bulwark of the Protestant faith. The ex- 
 ample was generally followed throughout the kingdom, the 
 electors insisting on paving all the expenses of the popular 
 candidates, — and when the elections were over, Shaftesbury 
 found himself as strong in numbers as he had been in the last 
 parliament, — but many members of the country party privately 
 expressed great alarm at his violence, and to the eyes of the 
 discerning the reaction against him had palpably begun. Un- 
 conscious of his danger, he prepared a circular form of in- 
 structions to be sent by the different constituencies to the 
 newly-elected members, particularly pressing them to pass a 
 bill to exclude the Duke of York and all Popish successors 
 from the Crown — to insist on an adjustment of the King's pre- 
 rogative of calling, proroguing, and dissolving parliaments, — 
 to restore the liberty enjoyed by their forefathers of being free 
 from guards and mercenary soldiers — and to refuse all sup- 
 plies till the nation was secure against Popery and arbitrary 
 power.* 
 
 The King was emboldened by a secret treaty with France, 
 by which he was to receive a subsidy of 2,000,000 of livres 
 for the current year, and 500,000 crowns for the two follow- 
 ing years — in consideration of which he was to withdraw 
 himself from Spain, and to abet the scheme of Louis for the 
 conquest of the Netherlands. He then proceeded to Oxford, 
 escorted by his horse guards. Shaftesbury, the representa- 
 tives of London, and the popular leaders followed, armed and 
 attended by a numerous band of arnied men wearing round 
 their hats a riband, with the inscription "No Popery! No 
 Slavery !" Oxford had the appearance of the place of meeting 
 of a Polish diet. During the rapid week which the parlia- 
 
 U This paper hi Shaftesbury's handwriting is still extant. 
 
A.D. !58I. PROCEEDINGS OF OXFORD PARLIAMENT. 215 
 
 inent was allowed to sit, Shaftesbury played liis part with 
 all his wonted energy, — though not with his wonted dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 He opened the business in the House of Lords by denounc- 
 ing a most irregular proceeding on the last day of the last 
 parliament. Both Houses had passed " a Bill for repealing 
 the 35th of Elizabeth against Protestant Dissenters who do 
 not attend public worship on Sundays in their parish church.'' 
 This was disagreeable to the King, who wished to keep them 
 dependent on his dispensing power, and to prevent them from 
 being in a better situation than the Roman Catholics, and yet 
 did not like to incur the odium of openly rejecting it by his 
 veto. He therefore directed the clerk privately to remove it 
 from the table of the House of Lords, and the prorogation 
 took place without any notice being taken of it. Shaftesbury 
 now affecting to lay the blame upon the officers, pointed out 
 the gross impropriety of the manner in which the bill had 
 been unconstitutionally got rid of ; and the ministers could 
 not refuse him the committee he moved for to inquire into the 
 affair, although they were aware that if the committee ever 
 sat, the truth must come out. They succeeded in getting the 
 meeting of the committee deferred to a distant da} 7 , — before 
 which the parliament was dissolved. In the mean time he 
 introduced another bill in the same terms to repeal the 35th 
 of Elizabeth, to which they did not venture to offer any op- 
 position. 
 
 But the two grand measures on which the fate of this parlia- 
 ment turned, were " the Exclusion Bill" and "the impeach- 
 ment of Fitzharris." The King in his speech had declared 
 his willingness to assent to any expedient by which, in the 
 event of a Catholic Prince succeeding to the throne, the ad- 
 ministration of government might be retained in the hands of 
 Protestants, but said he would never depart from his resolu- 
 tion of keeping the succession unbroken. Halifax immediately 
 laid before the House the details of this plan, — by which the 
 Duke of York was to be banished 500 miles from the British 
 dominions during his life ; on the demise of the Crown he was 
 to assume the title of King, but all the powers of govern- 
 ment w.Bre to be transferred to a Begent, to be exercised in 
 the nan e of the absent Sovereign ; the regency to belong, in 
 the first instance, to the Princess of Orange, after her to the 
 Lady Anne, and if James should have a legitimate son edu- 
 cated a Protestant, to continue during the minority of such 
 
215 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXX1X 
 
 ton and no longer. Tf Shaftesbury had acted wisely, he would 
 have closed with this proposal, which was only made in the 
 belief that it would be rejected ; but, betrayed into an over- 
 weening confidence of victory, he undertook to compel the 
 King to assent to the measure on which he staked all, — total 
 exclusion. He gave the very insufficient reason, that as, ac- 
 cording to the doctrine of the lawyers, the descent of the 
 Crown takes away all disabilities from the next heir on whom 
 it descends, James becoming King would claim an indefeasible 
 right to the Sovereign authority, unimpaired by statute ; — not 
 observing that the same futile argument might be applied with 
 equal force against his own favourite Exclusion Bill. This, 
 after a two days' debate, was again ordered to be introduced 
 in the House of Commons, and was read a first time by a great 
 majority ; but the public began more strongly to take part 
 with the King, and to apprehend a civil war from an attempt 
 to put Monmouth on the throne, — which now appeared to be 
 the object of the total exclusion of the Duke of York, — rather 
 than a regard for religion or liberty. 
 
 Shaftesbury fell into a still graver error by his unconstitu- 
 tional attempt to try a commoner on a capital offence before 
 the House of Peers. There had been a great straggle between 
 the two parties, which of them should have as a tool a mis- 
 creant of the name of Fitzharris, who was ready to accuse him- 
 self and others of any atrocities to suit the purposes of those 
 who should pay him best. He was to have been brought by 
 Shaftesbury to Oxford to make some terrific discoveries in 
 support of the Popish plot, and it was thought a masterly 
 stroke on the part of the King to shut him up in the Tower, 
 and to order the Attorney-General to proceed against him for 
 high treason in the Court of King's Bench. But Shaftesbury 
 ingeniously devised a scheme by which he might completely 
 recover his control over his creature. A motion was made 
 and carried in the Commons for impeaching Fitzharris before 
 the Lords for high treaton,— with a view to supersede the 
 King's prosecution, and enable the exclusionists to turn him 
 to what use they pleased. In the wantonness of triumph the 
 victorious party ordered that Sir Leoline Jenkins, the Secre- 
 tary of State who had signed the warrants for his committal 
 to the Tower, should carry up the impeachment, and this grave 
 functionary was obliged, however reluctantly, to obey,— that 
 ne might escape imprisonment and expulsion. The objection 
 was immediately started in the Lords, that the accused, being 
 
JLD. 1381. IMPEACHMENT OF FITZHARRIS. 217 
 
 a commoner, he could not be tried for his life by them who 
 were not his peers. 
 
 Shaftesbury, forgetting Charles I.'s prosecution for high 
 treason before the Lords of the five members of the House of 
 Commons. — which had been so much condemned and which 
 had cost him so dear, — rashly and obstinately contended that 
 the Commons had in all ages justly exercised the right of 
 impeachment against all subjects for all offences; — that im- 
 jjeachment being at the suit of the people what an indictment 
 is at the suit of the King, and the House of Lords being the 
 only Court in which the people can sue, to reject the im- 
 peachment would be a denial of justice ; —and that although 
 Magna Charta says a man is to be tried by his peers, it adds, 
 " or by the law of the land," referring no doubt to parlia- 
 mentary impeachment, which knows no distinction, as far as 
 jurisdiction is concerned, between misdemeanour, felony, and 
 treason. 
 
 On the other side, the Lord Chancellor argued irresistibly, 
 that whatever instances there might be to the contrary in 
 times of confusion and violence, a commoner was as little 
 liable to be tried for his life by the House of Peers as a Peer 
 by a petty jury, and he produced from the rolls of parlia- 
 ment (what had great weight) an " accord ' : made before 
 Edward III. in full parliament, stating, "that the judgment 
 for high treason given by the Lords against the murderers of 
 Edward II. should never' be drawn into a precedent whereby 
 they might be called upon to judge any others than Peers." 
 The House resolved that Fitzharris should be proceeded with 
 according to the course of the common law, and not by way of 
 impeachment. 
 
 Shaftesbury could only get nineteen other Peers to join him 
 in opposing this resolution in the Lords, but the Commons in 
 a flame immediately voted for him almost unanimously, " that 
 it amounted to a denial of justice, a violation of the constitution 
 of parliament, and an obstruction to the further discovery of the 
 Popish plot : and that if any inferior Court should proceed to 
 the trial of Fitzharris, it would be guilty of a high breach of 
 the privileges of the House of Commons." ' 
 
 i Mr. Hallam, a most respectable authority those great lawyers, Hale (Jurisdiction of 
 
 on all constitutional questions, has condemned House of Lords, c. xiv.)and Blackstone (Com. 
 
 this resolution of the Lords, contending that iv. c. 19), who lay down the contrary doctrine 
 
 a commoner may be lawfully impeached be- in the most explicit terms. 1. The provision 
 
 fure the Lords for a capital offeuce (Const, of Magna Charta "nee super eum ibimus 
 
 Hist. ii. 603) ; but I adhere to the opinion of nisi per legale judicium parium suorum,' 
 
218 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. LXXXIX. 
 
 It so happened that these resolutions were passed on Satur- 
 day the 2 Oth of March, the same day that there was a vote in 
 favour of the Exclusion Bill. Charles thereupon formed his 
 determination forthwith to dissolve the parliament, but he kept 
 it a profound secret till the very moment of its execution. The 
 Commons having complained of the inconvenience of the Con- 
 vocation house where they met, the public theatre was fitted 
 up for them, and during this day the King repeatedly came to 
 the spot, and himself gave directions as to the most conve- 
 nient manner of carrying on the works. During the Sunday 
 he made " the wonderful accommodation he was providing 
 for his faithful Commons " the frequent subject of his dis- 
 course,— and every thing indicated a protracted session. On 
 the Monday morning the King came to the House of Lords, as 
 he was wont, in a sedan chair, the crown being secretly 
 carried between his feet. Another chair followed with the 
 curtains drawn, supposed to contain the Lord in waiting. The 
 lid being raised, it was found stuffed with the King's robes. 
 But here a formidable difficulty arose, for they were found to 
 be by mistake the robes of the order of the Garter. So the 
 chair was sent back again for the parliamentary robes, and a 
 member of the House of Lords, who wished to escape from the 
 room to tell what he had seen, was locked up till the chair 
 returned. The King having instantly thrown the proper 
 robes over him, and taken his seat on the throne in the 
 
 which is a statutory declaration of the com- of a commoner to be impeached for a mis- 
 mac law, I think embraces every mode of demeanour does not break in upon the rule, 
 prosecution. 2. De Beresford's case (4 Ed. 3), —which has always been confined to capital 
 in which the Lords with one voice said that cases. Thus for a misdemeanour, a Peer 
 he was not their peer, and that they were may be tried before a jury, as a commoner 
 not bound to judge him as a peer of the land, may before the Peers. 1. The resolution of 
 is conclusive to show the state of the law at the House of Lords to proceed against Sir 
 that time, even if the proviso were not an Adam Blair and others, in 1690, after the 
 act of parliament, which, being "in full par- opinion of the Judges that the record of 4 
 liament," it seems to be. 3. Parliamentary Ed. 3 was a statute, is entitled to no weight, 
 impeachments were of more recent origin, as there never was any intention to do more 
 and could not justly deprive English com- tban to frighten the defendants for publish* 
 moners of their birthright. 4. The instances ing a libel; and the understanding in the 
 of impeachments of commoners for high trea- profession ever since has been that a com- 
 6on are very irregular, and more resemble moner cannot be tried for his life by the 
 acts of attainder than judicial proceedings. House of Lords. For a century and a half 
 5. The waiver of the objection in such in- there has been no such proceeding, and 
 stances amounts to little. The five members although Lord Nottingham's position is said 
 prosecuted for high treason by the Attorney- to be "dangerous and unfounded," such a 
 General before the Lords, allowed to be im- proceeding we may venture to say will never 
 properly prosecuted, did not plead to the again be attempted.— See St. Tr. viii. 22\ 
 Jurisdiction more than Scroggs when im- xii. 1207. Hat. Free. iv. 50. Paviphltt by 
 oeached by the Commons. 6. The liability Sr W. Jones, 1681. 
 
A-D. 1681. DISSOLUTION OF OXFORD PARLIAMENT. 219 
 
 House of Lords, the Black Rod was sent for the Commons, and 
 found them listening in a very careless manner to some tedious 
 remarks of Sir William Jones, an old lawyer, on the Lord 
 Chancellor's " Accord, temp. Ed. III." Going up to the bar 
 of the House of Lords, there they saw the King with the 
 Crown on his head, and heard him say, " My Lords and Gen- 
 tlemen, — all the world may see we are not like to have a good 
 end when the divisions at the beginning are such. Therefore, 
 my Lord Chancellor, do as I have commanded you." Lord 
 Chancellor. — " My Lords and Gentlemen, his Majesty has com- 
 manded me to say that it is his Majesty's royal will and 
 pleasure that this parliament be dissolved, and this parliament 
 is accordingly dissolved." k 
 
 Charles instantly stepped into his carriage and set off at full 
 speed for Windsor. Shaftesbury, when he had recovered his 
 breath, talked of sitting for the despatch of business in spite of 
 the dissolution, called on his friends not to separate, and sent 
 several messengers to the Commons, entreating them to wait, 
 as the Lords were still sitting. But the members of the popular 
 party in both Houses gradually withdrew ; Shaftesbuiy, almost 
 deserted, went out into the streets, where he saw a general dis- 
 persion ; in a few hours he found Oxford in its wonted state of 
 torpidity, and, by way of relief to his troubled thoughts, he 
 himself hurried off for London. m 
 
 CHAPTER XC. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY" 
 
 For some time after his arrival in London, Shaftesbury flattered 
 himself that the dissolution of the parliament at Ox- 
 ford, like former violent dissolutions, would aggravate 
 the public discontent ; but the victory of his opponents was com- 
 plete, and Charles was enabled from henceforth for the rest of 
 his reign to rule by prerogative, — to carry into execution all 
 his plans, — and, though the victim he most panted for escaped 
 
 k 4 Pari. Hist. 1339. Examen, 104. plate as a mark of his gratitude. — Raicleiffa 
 
 m He had been Lxiged in Baliol College, to Bedivivus, Part II. 101. 
 wJich he presented a magnificent piece of 
 
220 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. XC. 
 
 Iiira, to execute a bloody revenge upon others who had incurred 
 his resentment. 
 
 There remained a most formidable popular party, and it was 
 fortunate for the King that neither pecuniary difficulties nor 
 the state of public affairs imposed upon him such a necessity 
 for calling a parliament as, forty years before, had been 
 felt by his father on the Scottish invasion ; but there can be 
 no doubt that there was now a considerable reaction in his 
 favour, which arose partly from the general fickleness of the 
 public mind, partly from Shaftesbury's dangerous character 
 and designs being more clearly developed, partly from the 
 proffered concessions to guard against a Popish succession ; 
 but, above all, from the discredit into which the Popish plot 
 had fallen, and the desire of mankind to blame others for their 
 own credulity and folly. 
 
 Shaftesbury entrenched himself in the city of London, but 
 saw that he would soon be assailed there. The government 
 began the celebration of their triumph with the conviction and 
 execution of Fitzharris, in spite of the resolution of the House 
 of Commons, that, after their impeachment of him, his trial by 
 the course of the common law would be a high breach of their 
 privileges. 11 Still more alarming was the fate of College, 
 " the Protestant Joiner," who, after a bill of indictment 
 against him had been thrown out by a Middlesex grand jury, 
 was carried down into Oxfordshire, under pretence that he 
 had been guilty of an overt act of treason in that county, by 
 going armed to the parliament, — and was there found guilty 
 and put to death, — although nothing was satisfactorily proved 
 against him, except that he was a turbulent demagogue, who 
 had gained great distinction by bawling out " Xo Popery ! " ° 
 
 Soon the eyes of England and of all Europe were turned to 
 the fate of the man who had so long held a divided sway with 
 his Sovereign, and by whose destruction it was hoped that 
 all further opposition to the plans of the Court would for 
 ever cease. Early in the morning of the 2nd of July, 1681, 
 under a wan-ant from the Secretary of State, the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury was apprehended at Thanet House, in Alders- 
 gate Street, on a charge of high treason, his papers were 
 seized, and he was earned, under a military escort, to be 
 examined before the Council at Whitehall. Arriving there, he 
 found the Council assembled, and the King had the bad taste 
 to be present, having come from Windsor that morning for + he 
 
 B 3 St. Tr. 243. ° Ibid. 549. 
 
A.D 1681. COMMITTED TO THE TOWER. 221 
 
 pleasure of seeing his old friend and arch enemy in custody on 
 a capital charge. 
 
 Certain depositions were read against him, made by Irish 
 witnesses, who were to have been examined against the Duke 
 of York and the Queen, and who, accusing Shaftesbury of hav- 
 ing suborned them, swore that he had entered into a conspiracy 
 with them, in case he should be worsted in the parliament at 
 Oxford, to carry his measures by an open insurrection, and 
 that he had used many violent and threatening expressions 
 against the King. The prisoner treated this charge with the 
 utmost scorn, desiring to be confronted with the witnesses ; 
 and observing that, if he really could treat of such matters 
 with such persons, he was fitter for Bedlam than the Tower. 
 Among his papers was found the draught of an association 
 rather of a dangerous nature ; but it was not in his hand- 
 writing, and there was nothing to show that he had ever pe- 
 rused it. Upon such evidence he could not be fairly convicted ; 
 but, in the hope of the case being strengthened, or of a partial 
 tribunal, he was committed to take his trial. In James's Me- 
 moirs 11 it is said, that his boldness forsook him when the 
 warrant for his commitment was signed, and that the very 
 rabble hooted him on his way to the Tower. Martyn asserts, 
 with much more probability, that he remained undaunted ; 
 that, as he was conducted to prison, he was saluted by vast 
 multitudes with wishes and prayers for his prosperity; and 
 that one among the rest having cried out, "God bless your 
 Lordship ! and deliver you from your enemies," he replied, 
 with a smile, " I thank you, sir, but I have nothing to fear : 
 they have much, therefore pray God to deliver them from 
 me." A few days after, one of the Popish Lords, whom he had 
 been instrumental in sending to the Tower, affecting great 
 surprise to find him among them, he coolly answered, " that 
 he had been lately indisposed with an ague, and was come to 
 take some Jesuits' powder." q 
 
 It seems certain, however, that, while in the Tower, he 
 offered to expatriate himself, and to spend the remainder of 
 his days in Carolina, a colony which he had assisted to settle, 
 and where he had property/ but the King declared " he 
 should be tried ly his Peers." 
 
 P Vol. i. 713. r The aristocratic constitution for this 
 
 i Life, by Martyn, ii. 288. Li r e and Death colony was drawn np at his request by Mr 
 
 of Earl of Shaftesbury, published imme- Locke.— Locke's Works, x. 175. 
 
 diately after his death — Harl. Misc. 
 
222 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBLRY. Chap. XC. 
 
 The difficulty of the government was to get a bill of indict- 
 ment found against him by a grand jury. Parliament not 
 sitting, and there being a determination that a parliament 
 should never sit again, this was the only mode of commencing 
 the prosecution. But the first step being gained, all the rest 
 of the process would have been most easy ; for the indictment 
 being removed before the Court of the Lord High Steward, 
 consisting of Peers selected by the King, — his subsequent trial 
 would have been mere matter of form, — as much as after sen- 
 tence the warrant to behead him. 
 
 All regard to truth and justice being set aside, the clever 
 course would have been for the witnesses to have sworn to an 
 overt act of treason in some county where there was a ma- 
 nageable grand jury ; but they had not been properly drilled 
 npon this point, and they represented all the treasonable con- 
 sults to have taken place in Thanet House, in the City of Lon- 
 don. By a London grand jury alone, therefore, could the bill 
 of indictment be found : and London was still in the power of 
 the old liberal corporation. The grand jury was to be sum- 
 moned by the Sheriffs, and the Sheriffs were Whigs. There were 
 Old Bailey Sessions held on the 7th of July, at which regu- 
 larly the indictment ought to have been preferred ; but the 
 Attorney-General waited in the hope of better Sheriffs. Shute 
 and Pilkington, the next couple, were " Whigs and something 
 more." 
 
 The trial being delayed, Shaftesbury repeatedly applied by 
 counsel at the Old Bailey and Hicks' s Hall, that, according 
 to his own Habeas Corpus Act, he might be bailed ; but on 
 the suggestion that the Tower was not under the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Court, and other frivolous excuses, the application, 
 to which he was clearly entitled, was refused. He prepared 
 an indictment against the Justice who had taken the deposi- 
 tions on which he was committed, and against several of the 
 witnesses for a conspiracy to convict him by perjury ; but 
 Pemberton, and the other Judges who wished to please the 
 King, would not suffer the indictment to be submitted to a 
 grand jury. 
 
 In the mean time every exertion was made to poison the 
 public mind, and to prejudice against the accused those who 
 were to decide upon his fate. Innumerable pamphlets issued 
 from the press, denouncing him as " the great agitator, with- 
 out whose baleful presence all resistance to sound principles 
 in church and state would be at an end." The pulpits rang 
 
A.D. 1631. "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL." 223 
 
 with the dangers to true religion from the non-conformists, 
 and he was reviled by name as "the Apostle of Schism." 
 The Catholics very excusably joined loudly in the cry against 
 him, and called him "the Man of Sin." Political vitupera- 
 tors branded him as " Mephistophiles," " the Fiend," and 
 " Aldennan Shiftshury ." For the purpose of lowering his 
 reputation, a story was revived of his having boasted that he 
 might have been King of Poland when John Sobieski was 
 elected ; and a whimsical Narrative was published, giving an 
 account of his election, under the name of "Count Tapsky" 
 which in one sense applied to an operation performed on his 
 side, in consequence of the abscess formed there from his 
 wound, and in another to his towering genius, leading him to 
 penetrate the firmament and to touch the stars. But the 
 grand engine which the Court hoped would turn the full flood 
 of public indignation against him was the poetry of Dry den. 
 On the 17th of November, 1681, exactly one week be- 
 fore the bill of indictment was to be prepared against him 
 at the Old Bailey, came out " Absalom and Achitophel," s 
 the most lively, the most entertaining, the most poetical, the 
 most captivating personal satire ever written. It had the 
 greatest sale of any publication issuing from the press in 
 England down to the end of the reign of Queen Anne, except 
 the sermon for which Dr. Sacheverell was impeached.' In 
 a few months it had gone through seven large editions, and 
 in a few hours the character of Achitophel was in the mouth 
 of ever)- one. Shadwell and Settle published answers, but 
 of very inferior merit. High hopes were expressed that the 
 witnesses would gain credit with the grand jury against 
 a man so degraded; but such reasoners knew little of fac- 
 tion ; for the more Shaftesbury was assailed, the more reso- 
 lutely did his admirers adhere to him, and they now regarded 
 him with respect, affection, and tenderness, as a martyr in 
 their cause. 
 
 The 24th of November was the critical day, and when it 
 
 9 Although Dryden has the merit of the ■ Besides, my titles are as numerous, 
 ingenious parallel between Jewish and As all my actions various, still, and hu- 
 
 English historr, he was not the first to fix „ moT0 ^ ; 
 
 rt.:= r,„ m ~ ~„ ci, jv v. /-> .u niL c Some call me Torv, some Achitophel, 
 
 th ,„ name on Shaftesbury. On the 9th of Some Jack . a . Dand ^ 6orae old Machiavel ; 
 
 July, 1631, exactly a week after his arrest,— gome call me devil"; some his foster-brother, 
 
 came out a doggerel poem acrainst him, en- And turn-coat, rebel, all the nation over." 
 
 titled, " The Badger in the Fox-trap," con- t On the authority of Dr. Johnson's father, 
 
 t&iuing these lines:— ^ho was a bookseller.— See Life of Dryden, 
 
 in the " Lives of the Poete." 
 
224 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. XC. 
 
 dawned teiere seemed a strong probability to many that the 
 State Trials would be ornamented with " an account of the 
 conviction of Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury for high treason, 
 and of his gallant behaviour on the scaffold." The two Chief 
 Justices, Pemberton and North, presided at the Old Bailey, 
 both devoted tools of the government. The former charged 
 the Grand Jury, and, instead of telling them " that though 
 the proceeding was ex parte, and not conclusive, a case must 
 be made out against the prisoner, which, if not answered, 
 would be sufficient to convict him of high treason," said, 
 " That which is referred to you is, to consider whether, 
 upon the evidence given to you, there be any reason or 
 ground for the King to call this person to an account. You 
 are not to judge the person; for the honour of the King 
 and the decency of the matter it is not thought fit by the 
 law that persons should be accused and indicted where 
 there is no colour or ground for it ; where there is no kind of 
 suspicion of a crime, nor reason to believe that the thing 
 can be proved, it is not for the King's honour to call men 
 to an account ; therefore, you are to inquire whether what 
 you hear be any cause or reason for the King to put the 
 party to answer it." The cunning Judge knew well that 
 " Billa Vera " would have been Shaftesbury's death-wairant. 
 
 The Attorney-General made the extraordinary application 
 that the witnesses for the Crown might be examined in open 
 Court — so that the Grand Jury might be overawed by the 
 authority of the Judges. 
 
 The foreman suggested, that it had been the constant rule 
 from all time for Grand Juries to examine the witnesses pri- 
 vately in their own chamber ; and, to show the secrecy of 
 this preliminary inquiry, he quoted the words of the Grand 
 Juror's oath, — "the King's counsel, your fellows', and your 
 own, you shall keep secret," — which could not apply to a 
 proceeding before all the world. But C. J. North ruled that 
 the King might dispense with this secrecy, and that the ap- 
 plication could not be refused. 
 
 The indictment was upon the 25th of Edward III., for 
 " compassing and imagining the death of the King," — and the 
 overt acts were designing to raise an insurrection at Oxford, 
 — asserting " that the King was a man of no faith, and de- 
 served to be deposed like Richard IT.," and declaring " that 
 he, the Earl of Shaftesbury, would make England into a Com- 
 monwealth, like Holland." Notwithstanding all the pains 
 
A.D. 1682. INDICTMENT AGAINST HIM IGNORED. 225 
 
 that had been taken for four months, the case was not stronger 
 than at the time of the commitment ; and the witnesses, 
 telling a most improbable story, contradicted each other and 
 themselves, although the Judges interposed from time to 
 time with friendly questions, and tried to keep them in coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 The evidence being closed, Pemberton said — "You are to 
 inquire whether it be fitting for the King to call my Lord 
 Shaftesbury to question upon this account of treasonable 
 words." Xorth, C. J. — " Gentlemen, I hope you will consider 
 your oaths, and give all things their due weight." 
 
 The Grand Jury were then allowed to retire, carrying the 
 indictment along with them. They soon returned, and 
 quietly handed it to the Court. Never before or since, on the 
 decision of a Grand Jury, did so much depend, or was there 
 such breathless anxiety. When the officer, looking on the 
 back of the indictment, read aloud the word " Ignoramus," 
 a shout arose which lasted above an hour ; and, before it con- 
 cluded, there were bonfires and illuminations in every street 
 in the metropolis. 
 
 The messenger who carried the news of the Ignoramus to 
 the Tower found Shaftesbury playing a game at piquet with 
 his Countess, — which he calmly continued, — the cards having 
 been probably provided by design for the occasion, like 
 Eichard's prayer-book at Crosby House when he expected 
 the offer of the Crown. King Charles being told the cause of 
 the rejoicings, he said, without any art, " It is a hard case 
 that I am the last man to have law and justice in the whole 
 nation." u 
 
 The event was celebrated by a Medal, bearing the bust of 
 Shaftesbury, and the inscription, " Axroxio Cojiiti de Shaftes- 
 bury ;" on the reverse, the sun bursting through a cloud over 
 the city and Tower of London, with the date, 24th November, 
 1681, and the motto " L.etamur." 
 
 This gave rise to Dry den's famous poem of " The Medal," 
 said to have been suggested by the King himself, a 
 who, walking with him one day soon after in the Mall, 
 said, " If I were a poet (and I think I am poor enough to be 
 one), I would write a poem on Lord Shaftesbury's escape 
 from justice in the following manner," and then gave him the 
 plan of it. Dryden took the hint, carried the poem, as 
 soon as it was written, to the King, and had a present of a 
 
 u 8 St. lr. 759. 
 VOL. IV. Q 
 
226 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. XC. 
 
 hundred broad pieces for it. It was published in March, 1682. 
 The satire is, if possible, more cutting than any thing in 
 44 Absalom and Achitophel." This is the description of Shaftes- 
 bury's ministerial career : 
 
 " Behold him now exalted Into trust, 
 His counsels oft convenient, never just ; 
 E'en in the most, sincere advice he gave, 
 He had a grudging still to be a knave : 
 At least as little honest as he could, 
 And, like white witches, mischievously good. 
 To his first bias longingly he leans, 
 And rather would be great by wicked means." 
 
 Such a withering prophecy as the following was enough to 
 bring on the decrepitude it portrays : 
 
 " If true succession from our isle should fail, 
 And crowds profane with impious arts prevail, 
 Not thou, nor those thy factious arms engage, 
 Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage, 
 With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age." 
 
 But the poem brought the actual "Medal" into greater 
 vogue, and the whole Whig party wore it depending by a 
 riband from their button-hole, to show their numbers and their 
 spirit. 
 
 Charles was so delighted with the manner in which Dryden 
 avenged him upon Shaftesbury, that he pressed for a second 
 part of " Absalom and Achitophel." This task the great poet 
 turned over to Nahum Tate, contributing the 200 admirable 
 lines beginning — 
 
 " Next these a troop of busy spirits press, 
 Of little fortunes, and of conscience less ; 
 Shall that false Hebronite escape our curse, 
 Judas that keeps the rebels' pension purse, 
 Judas that pays the treason writer's fee, 
 Judas who well deserves his namesake's tree ? " 
 
 This poem did not appear till November, 1682, and had 
 small success, but was little wanted ; for by this time the 
 King had got a Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of his own in the 
 city, while Shaftesbury, rapidly declining in reputation and 
 in influence, had ceased to be formidable to his enemies, and 
 from the extravagant notions which had taken possession of 
 his diseased mind, was looked upon by his friends with com- 
 passion, distrust, and alarm. 
 
 Immediately after the indictment had been ignored, the noble 
 
A.D. 1682. PROSECUTES HIS ACCUSERS. 227 
 
 prisoner moved for his discharge ; but he was illegally de- 
 tained in custody in the Tower till the end of the following 
 Hilary term. He then resumed his residence in Thanet 
 House, taking special care not to go beyond the limits of the 
 city of London and county of Middlesex. 
 
 He instituted a prosecution against the principal witnesses 
 who had conspired maliciously to prosecute him for high 
 treason. The indictment being found at the Old Bailey, it 
 was removed by certiorari into the Court of King's Bench, and 
 the Judges granted a rule to show cause why it should not be 
 tried in another county. He showed cause in person, and 
 offered to try it in Middlesex. The Court insisted on a more 
 distant county. He declared that he abandoned the pro- 
 secution, as in every other county, since the dissolution of the 
 Oxford Parliament, passive-obedience sheriffs and magistrates 
 had been appointed, to the exclusion of all fair men, and no 
 justice could be obtained. 
 
 In the course of a few months he had the mortification to 
 find, that London and Middlesex were as much enslaved and 
 as unsafe as any part of the kingdom/ By recurring to - an 
 obsolete custom of appointing one Sheriff in the City by the 
 Lord Mayor drinking his health, and by the expedient of hold- 
 ing an illegal poll, Sir Dudley North and Eich, the passive- 
 obedience candidates, got possession of the office of Sheriff of 
 London and Middlesex, instead of Papillon and Dubois, 
 liberals, who were duly elected ; and though, at the elec- 
 tion of Lord Mayor, Gould, the liberal candidate, had a 
 large majority of lawful votes, — by a partial scrutiny Prit- 
 chard, his passive-resistance competitor, was placed in the 
 civic chair. 
 
 Now were vigorously prosecuted the proceedings in the 
 Court of King's Bench for disfranchising the city of London, 
 •and other municipal corporations, — and the plan of destroying 
 all free institutions in England, and establishing arbitrary rule, 
 was openly avowed and very generally encouraged. 
 
 Shaftesbury in despair for the State, and knowing that he 
 was himself still marked out for vengeance, began to contem- 
 plate a most criminal enterprise. There had as yet been no 
 misrule but what might be corrected by constitutional means 
 
 x The unlearned reader should be informed, viduals who are elected Sheriffs of London, 
 
 that the office of Sheriff of Middlesex, by a and who thus have the power of returning 
 
 very ancient grant, belongs to the city of juries for the county as well as for the city. 
 London, and is exercised by the two indi- 
 
 Q 2 
 
223 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap XC 
 
 and by the returning good sense of the public ; and at any 
 rate, the strength of the government was so great that resist- 
 ance could only involve those who attempted it in ruin, and 
 defer the hope of redress. Yet Shaftesbury was for an imme- 
 diate insurrection, — professing that he would respect the 
 monarchy and the person of the King, but that he would 
 forcibly set aside the Duke of York as successor to the crown 
 and get rid of evil counsellors. He flattered himself that be 
 had the City at his command, and that his "brisk boys" 
 suddenly rising and putting him in possession of this citadel, 
 the rest of the kingdom would by a general effort throw off 
 the galling yoke now imposed upon it. He solicited Lord 
 Russell, Sydney, and the other Whig leaders to join him. 
 They had various conferences with him, in which they agreed 
 in reprobating the arbitrary policy of the government, and 
 even deliberated with him on the necessity and the possibility 
 of saving the constitution by force ; but they positively re- 
 fused to join in an instant rising, and by way of tranquillising 
 him, strongly pressed for delay, till his plans should be better 
 matured, and the times should be more propitious. Even the 
 rash Monmouth cautioned him to be more prudent. It is said 
 that Shaftesbury's mind was now greatly enfeebled by bo- 
 dily suffering, and that his temper, formerly cheerful, equal, 
 and bland, had become morose, irritable, and gloomy. At 
 times, his former gaiety of heart broke forth. He declared to 
 his friends, " That he would lead the army himself; " and 
 jesting on his infirmities he said, " They must be convinced 
 he could not run away, and they should see he knew better 
 how to die fighting for their liberties than on a scaffold, — the 
 only alternative that remained for him." They were in hourly 
 apprehension of his engaging in some mad enterprise which 
 would involve the whole party in destruction. 
 
 Having information, in the beginning of November, that 
 there was an intention to arrest him, he settled his estate so 
 that it should, in any event, be secure to his family ; and, 
 leaving Thanet House, he lay concealed among his intimates 
 in different parts of the city, always shifting his quarters and 
 putting on different disguises. At last being told by his friend 
 Lord Mordaunt of a suspicious conference in the apartments 
 of the Duchess of Portsmouth, of which he was supposed to be 
 the subject, he said, "My Lord, you are a young man of 
 Honour, and would not deceive me : if this has happened, I 
 must be gone to-night." Accordingly he immediately left 
 
A.D. 1682. ESCAPES TO HOLLAND. 229 
 
 the house in which he was concealed, and in a few hours it 
 was searched by the King's messengers. 
 
 The following night, having tenderly taken leave of his 
 Countess and his friends, he quitted London, and, dressed in 
 the habit of a Presbyterian minister, he travelled to Harwich, 
 that he might embark from thence for the Continent. There 
 he was detained eight or ten days by contrary winds. During 
 this time he remained at an obscure inn with a handsome 
 young friend of the name of Wheelock, who was likewise dis- 
 guised under a black peruque, and passed as his nephew. It 
 so happened, that one day the maid of the house came sud- 
 denly into the room of this youth, and, to her surprise and 
 admiration, saw him with a fine light head of hair. She in- 
 stantly told her mistress, who acquainted the Presbyterian 
 minister and his nephew of the maid's discovery. "As to 
 herself," she said, " she did not know, nor desire to know, 
 who they were, and that they might depend upon her silence, 
 but she could not be sure of the maid's, and therefore advised 
 them to leave the house and town directly." Shaftesbury, 
 thanking her for her information, declared that "he should 
 have no apprehension from one who had such a sense of ho- 
 nour. As for the maid," said he, turning with a pleasant air 
 to Wheelock, "you must go and make love to her, and this 
 will secure her secrecy." 
 
 One of his servants, whom he dressed up in a similar dis- 
 guise to his own, was stopped and taken into custody, — which 
 facilitated the master's escape. Changing his habiliments, he 
 got off in an open boat, and after a tempestuous and perilous 
 voyage, arrived at Amsterdam. 
 
 He was afraid of being reclaimed by the English govern- 
 ment, and sent over as a criminal, of which there had been 
 several instances during these revolutionary times. But, 
 acting with his usual assurance, and confiding in the forgive 
 ness of political injuries when circumstances are changed, 
 he immediately petitioned to be admitted into the magis- 
 tracy, — and his prayer was complied with by the Capital of 
 the United Provinces in the following form : — " Carthago, non 
 adhuc deleta, Comitem de Shaftesbury in gremio suo recipere 
 vult." y 
 
 y Bibliotheqne Choisie, vi. 367. "Ostun a cause d'un discours qu*il avoit prononce" 
 
 honneur," says Le Clerc, " pour la ville d'Am- conime Chancellier dans le parlement 1672. 
 
 gterdani d' avoir recu et d'avoir protege un si *Les descendans de ce Seigneur en conser- 
 
 lllustre re'fugie, sans avoir egaid aux sinistres vent une me'moire pleine de reconnoissance, 
 
 impressions quon avoit voulu donner de lui, comme M. le Comte, son petit fils, me l's 
 
230 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. . Chap. XC. 
 
 He took a large house, in which he was beginning to live 
 very elegantly, out of compliment to his adopted country. 
 The principal men of the city waited upon him, saying, he 
 had at present no enemies hut such as were theirs, and the 
 municipality of Amsterdam ornamented their public hall with 
 a portrait of their new fellow-citizen. 
 
 In the midst of the fetes he was giving and receiving as a 
 Dutchman, he was seized with a violent fit of his old dis- 
 temper, the gout. It seemed to yield to the prescribed reme- 
 dies, and he thought he should soou recover, when it suddenly 
 flew to his stomach and proved fatal. He expired in the arms 
 of his faithful companion, Wheelock, on the 21st of January, 
 1683, in the 62nd year of his age. 
 
 Their High Mightinesses, the Lords of the States, showed 
 all respect for his memory by putting themselves into mourn- 
 ing, and ordering that his corpse and effects should be exempt 
 from all toll, fees, and customs, in every place they should 
 be carried through in order to their passage to England. A 
 vessel hung with black, and adorned with streamers and 
 scutcheons, conveyed the body to Poole in Dorsetshire ; and 
 on its arrival there the principal gentlemen of the county, 
 forgetting past animosities, and for the time recollecting only 
 what was praiseworthy in their distinguished countryman, 
 attended his funeral to Wimborne St. Giles, .where he was 
 honourably interred. 
 
 In the year 1732, the fourth Earl erected in the church 
 there a splendid monument to him, with an inscription, 
 which, after his genealogy and his offices, thus records his 
 services to the King, the country, liberty, and Protest- 
 antism : — 
 
 " Et principi et populo fidus, per varias rerum vicissitudiues 
 Saluti publican invigilavit ; Regnum Anarchia penitus obrutum 
 Restituit, stabilivit. Cum vero despotici imperii fautores, 
 Servuin pecus, et Roma, scelemm artifex, patriae intentarerit ruinam, 
 Civilis et Ecclesiastics libertatis Assertor extitit 
 Indefessus, Conservator strenuus. Humanitate, in patriam amore, 
 Ingenii acumine, probitate, facundiS, fortitudine, fide, 
 Cseterisque eximiis animi dotibus, nullum habuit superiorem. 
 Vitae, publicis commodis impensa?, memoriam et laudes, 
 Stante liber tate, nunquam abolebit Tempus edax, nee edacior Invidia." 
 
 temoigne plus d'une fois." From the view I to the family archives, but there seems no 
 
 ha"e felt myself obliged to take of some parts reason to suppose that they would affcrd any 
 
 of Lord Shaftesbury's character and conduct, I contradiction to these statements, 
 have not felt myself at liberty to ask for access 
 
CllAP. XC. HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER. 23\ 
 
 But the impartial historian cannot concur in this eulogy. 
 We readily allow that Shaftesbury not only had splendid 
 talents and an energy of mind almost unparalleled, but that he 
 had very valuable qualities calculated to secure attachment 
 and respect both in private and in public life. He was a 
 high-bred gentleman, and strictly observed all the con- 
 ventional rules of honour. In an age of great pecuniary 
 corruption he never took bribes from individuals at home or 
 from foreign governments. Although frequently changing 
 his party, he had the address to gain the confidence of his 
 new associates without incurring the personal ill-will of those 
 whom he left. The satire of Hudibras is unjust upon his 
 betraying the different administrations to which he had be 
 longed : 
 
 w Was for them and against them all, 
 But barbarous when they came to fall ; 
 For by trepanning th' old to ruin, 
 He made his interest with the new one." 
 
 Yet the attempts of his apologists to show that he was 
 through life the consistent friend of liberty and toleration, with 
 the exception of being carried rather too far by his zeal for 
 the reformed faith, rest upon a total perversion of facts and a 
 confusion of the distinctions between right and wrong. He 
 began by supporting the worst abuses of the reign of Charles I. 
 which had prevailed under his father-in-law, Lord Keeper 
 Coventiy ; and when he went over to the parliament he was 
 distinguished by his democratic fervour and his antipathy to 
 the royal family. He then eagerly joined those who were for 
 restoring Charles II. without condition or any security for 
 the constitution ; and as long as he shared in exercising the 
 power of the prerogative, he eagerly assisted in extending it, 
 and would have been pleased to see the King of England as 
 absolute as the King of France. His love for the natural 
 rights of mankind and for the Protestant religion he testified 
 by his exclamation, " Delenda est Carthago," and his accession 
 to Clifford's treaty, by which Popery was to be established in 
 England. Although he did not himself take bribes, he knew 
 that the King and his colleagues were the pensioners of Louis, 
 and he countenanced a policy by which England would have 
 been degraded into a province of that kingdom which she has 
 conquered, and of which she ought ever at least to be the rival 
 ar*d the equal. 
 
 I must likewise enumerate among his faults his grasping the 
 
232 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap.XC. 
 
 office of Chancellor, for which, if he was a man of sense, he 
 must have known that he was wholly incompetent. To gratify 
 his ambition, or vanity, or caprice, he turned a court of justice 
 into a lottery office, — sporting with the property and the 
 dearest interests of his fellow-subjects. 
 
 When he went over to the popular side, he was of great ser- 
 vice in opposing unconstitutional measures, such as " the Test 
 for establishing passive obedience." His "Exclusion Bill" 
 was a glorious effort, and he did accomplish the grand safe- 
 guard for personal liberty, — for which we must be for ever 
 grateful to him. But for his own crooked purposes, he in- 
 flamed religious animosity to a pitch of fury wholly unex- 
 ampled in England, he patronised the monstrous fictions and 
 murders of the Popish plot, and he passed the Catholic Dis- 
 qualification Bill, the bitter fruits of which our children will 
 taste. When by the extreme violence of his machinations he 
 had alarmed the friends of constitutional government, and 
 given an ascendency to the arbitrary principles adopted by 
 the Court, he planned an insurrection, which, if attempted 
 according to his eager wishes, could only have terminated in 
 the utter ruin of the liberal party, and the permanent estab- 
 lishment of despotism. The final result of his excesses and 
 vagaries was, that 'he lost influence with all parties, and that 
 his death in exile caused little grief to his friends or exulta- 
 tion to his enemies. 
 
 His great passion was for intense political excitement ; and 
 he was never so happy as in the crisis of some bold enter- 
 prise in which he hazarded his own safety and that of the 
 state. 
 
 From the specimens of his oratory which have come down 
 to us, he appears to have been the first man in this country 
 whom we can designate a great parliamentary debater. Com- 
 pare his dexterous appeals to party feeling, his cutting per- 
 sonalities, and his epigrammatic turns, to the eternal divisions 
 and subdivisions of P} f m, or the mixed pedantry and cant of 
 the other leaders on either side in the Long Parliament. 
 Halifax, formed on his model, if more refined, was less im- 
 pressive, and till the elder Pitt arose, he probably was not ex- 
 celled for eloquence in the English senate. 
 
 As to his literary merits, he was infinitely inferior to 
 Bolingbroke ; and I must agree with Horace Walpole, "that 
 he was rather a copious writer for faction than an author, and 
 that he wrote nothing which he could wish to be remeni- 
 
Chap. XC. HIS MANNERS. 233 
 
 bered." As the occasion required, he threw off a pamphlet 
 containing some burning words, but reckless as to facts, sen- 
 timents, and even style. 
 
 We have deeply to regret the loss of his autobiography, 
 which he intrusted to Mr. Locke, and which was burnt in the 
 panic occasioned by the execution of Algernon Sydney for 
 having in his possession a speculative treatise upon govern- 
 ment. The philosopher has by no means made atonement 
 for his timidity by his " Memoirs relating to the Life of 
 Anthony, first Earl of Shaftesbury," — an extremely jejune and 
 perfunctory performance. Indeed it is difficult to conceive 
 how any one of common intelligence, who had been long in 
 habits of familiar intercourse with such an eminent and in- 
 teresting personage, should have professed to give any account 
 of him without communicating more to instruct or amuse the 
 reader. 2 
 
 Shaftesbury seems to have been a most delightful com- 
 panion, and the following anecdote is handed down to us to 
 show his tact in society. ^ hile yet a young man, he was in- 
 vited to dine with Sir John Denham, an aged widower (as 
 was supposed), at Chelsea, who, when the guests had assem- 
 bled, said to them that he had made choice of the company 
 on account of their known abilities and particular friendship 
 to him, for their advice in a matter of the greatest moment 
 to him. He had been, he said, a widower for many years, 
 and began to want somebody that might ease him of the 
 trouble of housekeeping, and take some care of him under 
 the growing infirmities of old age ; and to that purpose had 
 pitched upon a woman well known to him by the experience 
 of many years, in fine, his housekeeper. A gentleman pre- 
 sent, to dissuade him from this step, out of regard to his 
 grown-up children, was beginning a very unflattering de- 
 scription of the object of his choice, — when Shaftesbury 
 begged permission to interrupt the debate by a question to 
 their host, — ""whether he was not already married to her ? " 
 Sir John, after a little demur, answered, " Yes, truly, I was 
 married to her yesterday." " Well, then," exclaimed Sir 
 Anthony Ashley Cooper, " there is no more need of our 
 advice ; pray let us have the honour to see my lady and wish 
 her joy, and so to dinner." He afterwards said privately, in 
 
 z Doubts have been entertained whether Locke's papers in the possession of Lvri 
 this sketch be by Locke ; but I cannot d> ubt Lovelace not in Lockes handwriting, 
 the fact, although there is a copy of it among 
 
234 LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY. Chap. XQ 
 
 returning home, to the gentleman whose speech he had cut 
 short, " The man and the manner gave me a suspicion that 
 having done a foolish thing he was desirous to cover himself 
 with the authority of our advice. I thought it good to be sure 
 before you went any farther, and you see what came of it." a 
 Another instance of his sagacity was his discovery of Miss 
 Hyde's marriage to the Duke of York, long before it was 
 made public, from the deference with which she was treated 
 by her mother. b 
 
 He lived in great splendour, and entertained the King 
 sumptuously at Wimborne St. Giles. Like his principles, 
 he changed his style of cookery. In 1669, when there was a 
 coolness with the French court, he received a visit from Cosmo 
 de' Medici, Duke of Tuscany. Regulating his table entirely 
 in the English manner, he declared that " he was neither 
 an admirer of the French taste nor friend to French interests, 
 while some with the servile maxims of that country had im- 
 bibed its luxury. Others might treat him like a Frenchman ; 
 his desire was to entertain him like an Englishman." The 
 Prince politely answered, " It was the greatest compliment 
 he could make him ; " and on his return to Italy sent him 
 every year presents of wine as a testimony of his regard. 
 
 Complying fully with the Court fashion, he seems to have 
 aimed at distinction in licentiousness as much as in any other 
 pursuit. Even when he was Lord Chancellor, he sought to 
 rival the King by the variety and notoriety of his amours. 
 This is quaintly intimated to us by Roger North. " "Whether 
 out of inclination, custom, or policy, I will not determine, it 
 is certain he was not behindhand with the Court in the 
 modish pleasures of the time. There was a deformed old 
 gentleman called Sir P. Neal, who, they say, sat for the pic- 
 ture of Sydrophel in Hudibras, and about town was called 
 the Lord Shaftesbury's groom, because he watered his mares in 
 Hyde Park with Rhenish wine and sugar, and not seldom a 
 bait of cheesecakes." d 
 
 Otway most indecently brought his vices on the stage in 
 the character of Antonio in Venice Preserved, 6 — which, that 
 
 a Locke, ix. 273. e It seems utterly impossible to believe 
 
 b Ante, p. 79. ' that the scenes between Antonio and Aquilina 
 
 c Martyn, i. 383. could ever have been publicly perfc-rned. 
 
 d Examen, 60. Sir P. Neal, thus con- To make the matter, if possible, won*, the 
 
 temptuously mentioned, is said to have been tragedy of " Venice Preserved " was brought 
 
 a physician ; a friend of Locke's and a fellow out in February, 1681, when Shaftesbury 
 
 of the Royal Society. was to be tried for his life,— wilh a view 
 
Chai\ xc. his family akd descendants. 235 
 
 it might not be mistaken, was thus boastfully announced in 
 the prologue : — 
 
 " Next is a senator that keeps — — — ■ 
 In Venice none a higher office hore ; 
 To lewdness every night the lecher ran, 
 Shew me all London such another man." 
 
 But though eager for reputation as a man of gallantry, he 
 modestly yielded the palm to his master. Charles having said 
 to him one day, " Shaftesbury, you are the most profligate 
 man in my dominions," he coolly replied, " Of a subject, sir, I 
 believe I am." 
 
 Yet he was not altogether negligent of domestic duties. 
 He was thrice married, and behaved to his wives with cour- 
 tesy. The first, as we have related, was the daughter of 
 Lord Keeper Coventry. By her he had no issue. JS'or had 
 he any by his third wife, who survived him, — a daughter of 
 William Lord Spencer of Wonnlington. But by his second 
 wife, the daughter of the Earl of Exeter, he had a son, An- 
 thony, who was not at all remarkable for genius, but who 
 was the father of the third Earl, the pupil of Locke, and the 
 author of " The Characteristics." In the education of this 
 grandson, amidst all his distractions, he took the most unceas- 
 ing and tender interest. 
 
 Shaftesbury in his person was short and slender, but well 
 made, and when young, strong and active, but from the life 
 he led, he early showed symptoms of premature old age. 
 
 " A fiery soul, which working out its way, 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.' 
 
 I wish, for many reasons, that I could have spoken of him 
 more favourably. It is delightful to think that his honours 
 and estates are now enjoyed by descendants who, inheriting a 
 large portion of his talents, are adorned by every public and 
 private virtue. 
 
 to render h'm odious. Dr. Johnson says in acted till 1685, but he is mistaken. Se* 
 Lie Life of Otway, that this play was not Malone'8 Life of Dryden, p. 168. 
 
236 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI. 
 
 CHAPTEE XCI. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HE WA8 
 
 CREATED LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 We now pass from a Chancellor destitute of all juridical 
 acquirements — to the " Father of Equity." Lord 
 Shaftesbury was succeeded by Lord Nottingham, 
 who fully deserves all the praise that has been bestowed upon 
 him as " a consummate lawyer," although I am afraid we shall 
 not be able to regard him always as "a zealous defender of 
 the constitution." f 
 
 Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, and Lord 
 Chancellor of England, was born at Eastwell, in Kent, on the 
 23rd of December, 1621. He was of the ancient family of the 
 Finches, whose descent from Henry Fitzherbert, Chancel- 
 lor to Hemy I., we have already noticed. g He was the son 
 of Sir Heneage Finch, who was the younger son of Sir 
 Movie Finch, and consequently he was first-cousin to the 
 Lord Keeper of that name. This Sir Heneage, the father, 
 was Piecorder of London, and Speaker of the House of Com- 
 mons in the second parliament of Charles I., which met in 
 1626, and he delivered to the King the address for the re- 
 moval of the Duke of Buckingham. He had been the friend 
 of Lord Bacon, and gallantly stood by that great man when 
 charged with bribery and corruption. He never rose to 
 greater distinction, but he made a large . fortune by his pro- 
 fession, and lived splendidly in Kensington Palace, which was 
 sold by his grandson to King William HI. 
 
 Young Heneage, unlike his kinsman who gained the Great 
 Seal by such evil arts, was ever remarkable for steadiness of 
 conduct and diligent application to study. He was educated 
 at Westminster School, and was thence transferred to Christ 
 Church, Oxford, where he was entered a gentleman com- 
 moner in Lent Terrn, 1635. Here he remained between two 
 and three years, reading very diligently ; but on account of 
 the sudden death of his father he withdrew from the Univwr- 
 
 f 3 B). Com. 56. 6 See Life of Lord Keeper Finch, ante, Vol. III.. 
 
A.D. 1638-45. CALLED TO THE BAR. 237 
 
 sity without taking a degree. Left so young his own master 
 with a considerable patrimony, there was great danger of 
 his plunging into dissipation ; but he resolved to rise to dis- 
 tinction by the profession of the law, as several of his family had 
 already done. He therefore entered himself of the Nov. 26, 
 Inner Temple, not merely, like other cavaliers of for- 1638 - 
 tune, to give a fashionable finish to his education, but with the 
 fixed resolve of mastering the science of the law. The pre- 
 sent practice of students at the Inns of Court becoming pupils 
 of special pleaders, conveyancers, and equity draughtsmen, 
 was then unknown, and a knowledge of the law was acquired 
 by hearing lectures called " readings," by the habit of " case 
 putting" at "moots," and by taking notes of arguments in 
 the courts of justice. In the whole of this discipline young 
 Finch was remarkable for his regularity and zeal. He laid to 
 heart a maxim of his uncle, Sir Henry Finch, that " a law 
 student ought to read all the morning and to talk all the after- 
 noon." b He therefore regularly attended the disputations 
 after supper in the Cloister Walks 1 in the Temple, which 
 seem to have supplied the place of our modern debating clubs, 
 — and, being a noted "put-case" he acquired great fluency of 
 speech and readiness of reply. 
 
 He was likewise a diligent note-taker when cases of im- 
 portance were argued at Westminster, and these he digested 
 for his own use, there being no " Term Reports " in those 
 days'. This useful exercise he continued for some years after 
 lie was in practice. In a MS. treatise of his, composed when 
 he was Chancellor, he thus refers to a case decided in Michael- 
 mas Term, 1656 : — " Vide meas notas in diebus Mis." 
 
 He was called to the Bar on the 30th of January, 1645, — 
 although then of little more than six years' standing on the 
 books of the Inner Temple, — the required period of seven 
 years being abridged in his case from favour or from his ex- 
 traordinary proficiency. k About the same time he married 
 
 h rJoqer North makes the Earl of Notting- chambers over them, as they now remain, at 
 
 ham himself the original author of this saying, the bottom of Inner Temple Lane. 
 
 — Life of Lord Guilford, i. 25. k This period has been gradually shortened. 
 
 i These " Walks " were burnt down in the When Lord Coke was a student, it was eight 
 
 great fee of London in 1666. The benchers years, but from his stupendous acquirements 
 
 of the Middle Temple wished to build cham- he was called at the end of six. There were 
 
 bers on the site — but this plan was stopped then regular and severe examinations during 
 
 by our Finch, then a bencher of the Inner the studentship, and a man might either have 
 
 Temple, from a grateful recollection of the been accelerated or plucked. The period at 
 
 benefit of case-putting. Sir Christopher Wren the Middle Temple and Gray's Inn is now 
 
 afterwards reconstructed the Cloisters with reduced to three years, and at Lincoln's 1"* 
 
238 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI. 
 
 the daughter of Mr. William Harvey, merchant of London, — a 
 lady of beauty and merit, with whom he long lived in a state 
 of great connubial happiness. 
 
 During the next fifteen years, except in domestic life, we 
 know nothing of him. His name is not mentioned in any 
 public records or private memorials of the time, and we are 
 left to the probable conjecture that being a keen royalist in 
 his heart, he would not accept of any employment under the 
 Commonwealth, and that not being of a nature very chival- 
 rous or adventurous, — instead of entering into plots against 
 the established government, he calmly and steadily pursued 
 his profession, in the hope that a change of public opinion 
 might bring round better times. The prosecution and flight 
 of his cousin, Lord Keeper Finch, from whose patronage he no 
 doubt expected promotion, must have been a heavy blow to 
 him, but he did not consider himself bound either to rush for- 
 ward in his defence, or to share his exile. 
 
 At last Oliver died, Eichard abdicated, Monk marched from 
 the North, and royalist principles might be safely proclaimed. 
 Finch emerged into public life, and was returned for the city 
 of Canterbury to the Convention Parliament. To mark his 
 loyal enthusiasm, he got up " a declaration and vindication of 
 the loyal-hearted nobility, gentry, and others of the county of 
 Kent and city of Canterbury, that they had no hand in the 
 murder of the King," — wherein it is set forth " that the gene- 
 rality, and as for the number, much the greater, so also for 
 the quality, much the better part of this famous and populous 
 county and city hath, from the alpha to the omega, from the 
 first to the last of these distracted, distempered, and unhappy 
 times, been truly cordial, constant, and steady in the matter of 
 their fidelity and loyalty to their Prince and Sovereign, with- 
 out the least thought or desire to deviate, apostatize, or turn 
 out of the good old way of due allegiance." 
 
 On the King's return, Finch was rewarded with the office of 
 
 June e, Solicitor-General, — to the disappointment of several 
 
 1660. cavalier lawyers, who had run more risks and made 
 
 greater sacrifices in the royal cause ; but, considering his 
 
 deep learning, his solid abilities, his professional eminence, 
 
 and his fair character, no one could justly blame the appoint- 
 
 and the Inner Temple to five years — abridging come merely formal and farcical— the student 
 
 it to three in favour of those who have taken being stopped in " putting his case " as soon 
 
 the degree of A M. at Oxford, Cambridge, or as he has pronounced the words "John 
 
 Dublin. At all, the examinations have be- Dan vers seised in fee—." 
 
A.D. 1660. MADE SOLICITOR-GENERAL AND A BARONET. 239 
 
 nient. To grace it, ne was first knighted, and immediately 
 after made a baronet. Sir Jeffrey Palmer, the Attorney General, 
 a very ahle lawyer, having been in the service of Charles I., 
 was now :ld and infirm; and not being a member of the 
 House of Commons, the great weight of the government busi- 
 ness was thrown upon the Solicitor, who got through it very 
 creditably. While the Convention Parliament lasted, he 
 seconded Clarendon's policy, by obstructing all the plans that 
 were brought forward for comprehending the Presbyterians in 
 the establishment, and still giving them hopes of favour.™ 
 When the bill of indemnity was passing, he successfully sup- 
 ported the amendment of the Lords, not only to except the 
 King's Judges, but Vane, Haslerig, Lambert, and Axtell, — 
 urging that they could only be pardoned on the saying of 
 David, " Slay them not, lest my people forget it ;" n but he was 
 unable to resist the proviso " that Vane and Lambert should 
 not be executed without the farther authority of the two 
 Houses." ° 
 
 A troublesome motion being made for an address that the 
 King would marry a Protestant, Mr. Solicitor parried it by 
 urging that " they had no reason to think the King would 
 marry a Papist, as he had not done so when living in the 
 courts of Catholic princes." He said, " they should, at all 
 events, first have a convenient Protestant match to propose ;" 
 and he denied that the marriage of the King's father to a 
 Papist had been a chief cause of the late troubles. 15 
 
 Finch strenuously supported a very foolish motion for the 
 impeachment of Mr. Drake, author of a book published to 
 show, what was undoubtedly correct in point of law, " that 
 the Long Parliament had never been legally put an end to," 
 as the Act for that purpose was a mere ordinance of the 
 Commons, without the concurrence of the King or the Lords, 
 — and that " the present parliament was not legally assem 
 bled," the writs being issued in the name of " the Keepers of 
 the Liberties of England." q 
 
 As a lawyer, I blush for my order while I mention Finch's 
 last appearance in the Convention Parliament. John Milton, 
 already the author of Comus and other poems, the most exqui- 
 site in the language, — after being long detained in the custody 
 of the Serjeant at Arms, was released by the order of the 
 House — most men, however " cavalierly" inclined, being dis- 
 
 ■ 4 Pari. Hist. 119, n Ibid. 100, 102, 10S. ° Ibid. 79, 95, 154. 
 
 P 5 -d. 120. <i 5 St. Tr. 1363. 
 
240 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI. 
 
 posed to forget his political offences. The Serjeant had 
 exacted from his prisoner fees to the amount of 150/., — a sum 
 which, with great difficulty, he had borrowed from his friends. 
 The famous Andrew Marvell brought the matter before the 
 House, and moved that the money should be refunded. He 
 was supported in this motion by Colonel King and Colonel 
 Shapcot, two officers of undoubted loyalty as well as gal- 
 lantry ; but Mr. Solicitor- General Finch strongly opposed it, 
 saying that "this Mr. Milton had been Latin Secretary to 
 Cromwell, and, instead of paying 150/., well deserved hang- 
 ing." r However, the matter was referred to a committee of 
 privileges, who, I hope, decided for the Poet. 
 
 The trials of the regicides coming on, they were chiefly con- 
 ducted by Mr. Solicitor Finch on the part of the Crown ; and 
 through the whole of the proceedings he seems to have acted 
 with moderation and firmness. He cannot fairly be made 
 answerable for the objectionable Judges named in the Com- 
 mission, or for the harshness with which some of the prosecu- 
 tions against those who had not concurred in the King's death 
 we're instituted. 
 
 Next year he was chosen " Autumn Header of the Inner 
 i66i Temple," and he performed his duties with an ability 
 and splendour never surpassed. He took for the sub- 
 ject of his lectures " the Payment and Recovery of the Debts 
 of the Crown," which he treated with great depth of learning 
 and felicity of illustration. — The feasting lasted six days. 
 On the first of these he entertained the nobility and Privy 
 Councillors ; on the second, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and 
 principal citizens of London ; on the third, the whole College 
 of Physicians, who came with caps and gowns ; on the fourth, 
 the Long Eobe, — Judges, Advocates, Doctors of the civil law, 
 and all the society of Doctors' Commons ; on the fifth, the 
 Archbishops, Bishops, and other dignitaries of the Church; 
 and on the last, the King, the Duke of York, and all the great 
 officers of the Court. There had not been such a royal visit 
 since Henry VIII. and Queen Catherine honoured a Serjeant's 
 feast kept in Ely House, as commemorated by Stowe, — al- 
 though Henry VII. and preceding sovereigns had often thus 
 shown their respect for the Law and its Professors. On this 
 occasion, we are told that his Majesty came from AVhitehall in 
 his state barge, and landing at the Temple stairs, was there 
 received by the Reader, and the Chief Justice yf the Common 
 
 r 5 St. Tr. 162. 
 
A.D. 1665. HIS GRAND FEAST WHEN «• READER." 241 
 
 Pleas. Passing thence through, a double file of the Reader's 
 servants clothed in scarlet cloaks and white doublets, he took 
 his way through a breach made expressly for the occasion in 
 the wall, which at that time enclosed the Temple Garden, — 
 and moved on through a lane formed of Benchers, Utter- 
 barristers, and Students belonging to the Society, — till mount- 
 ing the Terrace, he arrived at the Inner Temple Hall. A 
 band of many wind instruments and twenty violins saluted 
 the royal ear with lively and soothing airs. After the sump- 
 tuous dinner, there was much dancing and merriment, which 
 continued to a late hour. His Majesty entered with a hearty 
 good humour into the frolics of the place ; and the Duke of 
 York and Prince Rupert were admitted members of the 
 Society. 8 
 
 In the parliament called in 1661, which sat near eighteen 
 years, Finch represented the University of Oxford, which was 
 proud of him, but not quite satisfied with his services, as he 
 did not procure a remission of the tax upon hearths, which 
 weighed heavily on the Colleges. While the parliament was 
 held at Oxford in 1665, on account of the plague ad 1665 
 raging in London, the member for the University 
 greatly distinguished himself in supporting " the Five-mile 
 Act," much valued by his constituents, as it forbad any non- 
 conformist minister to dwell in, or come within, five miles of 
 any market town ; and they resolved gratefully to confer upon 
 him the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law; "which 
 creation being concluded," says Anthony Wood, " in the pre- 
 sence of several parliament men, the Vice-Chancellor stood up 
 and spoke to the public orator to do his office : Whereupon he 
 made a most admirable harangue, and amongst other things to 
 this effect, that the University wished they had more Colleges to enter- 
 tain the parliament men and more chambers, but by no means more 
 chimneys, — at which Sir Heneage changed his countenance, 
 and drew a little back." 
 
 During this short session at Oxford he incurred the high 
 displeasure of the landed interest, by opposing the Bill to 
 prohibit the importation of Irish cattle and provisions. " He 
 was never known," says Carter, " to exert himself so much ; 
 but had an angel spoken, it would have signified nothing.' 
 He could not even prevail on the House to pause or to give a 
 copy of the Bill to Sir W 7 illiam Petty, and the other deputies 
 
 s A similar honour was soon after conferred on Lincoln's Irm, where tne royal signatured 
 are still to he seen. l Life of Omiond, ii. 322. 
 
 VOL. IV. K 
 
242 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI. 
 
 sent over from Ireland to oppose it, — who were told "that it 
 might be once read over to them, and then they must imme- 
 diately say what they had to offer in objection." u 
 
 I do not find any further notice of his parliamentary efforts 
 while he was Solicitor-General, except on the impeachment of 
 Lord Clarendon. It has been falsely said "that he then turned 
 against his patron ; x but it is quite clear that he manfully 
 stood by him, — admitting " that an impeachment there must 
 be if there be cause, and that such accusations are 
 not to be passed over in silence," — but arguing with 
 irresistible force that none of the articles amounted to high 
 treason under 25 Ed. III., and scouting the notion that there 
 may be a prosecution for treason in parliament more than in 
 the inferior courts for any offence not declared to be treason 
 by the statute : " How then doth the bringing it into parlia- 
 ment alter the case ? If the parliament set aside laws in this 
 case, we should be happy to see a law declaring what is the 
 power of parliament." y 
 
 But in the mean time his reputation for fine speaking at the 
 bar rose so high that he was now often called the " English 
 Cicero" and the " English Roscius." Evelyn styles him " the 
 smooth-tongued Solicitor ;" and in his Diary, under date Octo- 
 ber 26th, 1664, he writes, " At the Council I heard Mr. Solici- 
 tor Finch plead most eloquently for the merchants trading to 
 the Canaries, praying for a new charter." We have a similar 
 testimony from the simple and trustworthy Pepys respecting 
 the hearing of an appeal at the bar of the House of Lords. 
 " The cause was managed for my Lord Privy Seal by Finch, 
 the Solicitor-General, but I do really think that he is a man 
 of as great eloquence as ever I heard or ever hope to hear in 
 all my life." z 
 
 On the trial of Lord Morley for the murder of Mr. Hastings 
 before the Lord High Steward and the Peers, he made a most 
 elaborate speech, la}dng down with great precision the dis- 
 tinction between murder and manslaughter. Some of his 
 observations on the effect of the prisoner being a Peer are 
 curious : "I do acknowledge to your Lordships (for why 
 should I conceal any thing that makes for my Lord Morley's 
 advantage ? N I do confess that an affront or indignity offered 
 to a Peer is much more heinous than that which is offered to 
 
 u Cora. Journ. I am proud to think that the ante, p. 99. x L. C. i 165. 
 
 opposition to this iniquitous measure was led in H Pari. Hist. 375 
 ei tbcr House by a lawye'r.— Life of Cla> tndon, l May 3, 1664. 
 
A.D. 1670. MADE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 2-13 
 
 a private gentleman. But I must needs say withal, that the 
 law hath provided another manner of reparation for a Peer 
 than that which it gives a gentleman. The same words that 
 being spoken of a gentleman will bear no kind of action, when 
 they are spoken to a Peer become scandalum magnatum. The 
 Peer recovers great damage ; the King inflicts fine or impri- 
 sonment; so that upon the matter the offender is bound in 
 chains, and brought and laid at my Lord's feet. Now, for 
 him whose honour is thus guarded by the law, to avenge him- 
 self by his sword, is a most unpardonable excuse. I do not 
 pretend, I do not offer to say, that the killing of a man is more 
 capital in the case of a Peer than would be in the case of a 
 private gentleman : but I do presume to affirm, that no provo- 
 cation in the world can make that to be but manslaughter in 
 the case of a Peer that would be murder in the case of a gen- 
 tleman." The noble prisoner was acquitted of murder by all 
 except two Peers (Ashley and Wharton), and being found 
 guilty of manslaughter pleaded his privilege and was dis- 
 charged. 3 
 
 Sir Jeffrey Palmer, after a lingering illness, dying in 1670, 
 Sir Heneage Finch, as a matter of course, succeeded 
 him in the office of Attorney-General, the duties of 
 which he had long performed. He now took a more pro- 
 minent part in the House of Commons, and stoutly defended 
 the measures of the Government, which had become of a very 
 unconstitutional and dangerous character. 
 
 He strongly opposed the " Coventry Act," b and proposed 
 that the punishment of " cutting to disfigure " should be only 
 forfeiture of goods and imprisonment for life, — actuated, I 
 fear, less by a dislike of capital punishment than by a desire 
 to please the Court, who highly approved of the dastardly 
 atrocity which gave rise to this piece of legislation.* 1 
 
 He successfully opposed a measure for enforcing the attend- 
 ance of members of parliament, by enacting that defaulters 
 should be doubly assessed to the subsidy, saying, " You have 
 a power to fine them, and you may appoint a day to pay it, on 
 penalty of expulsion from the House." It was rejected only 
 by a majority of 115 to 98. e 
 
 a 6 St Tr. 786. So the Duchess of King- d Slitting the nose of Sir John Coventry by 
 
 gton. being found guilty of bigamy in 1776, hired bravoes for a pleasantry uttered hy 
 
 •was discharged with a caution from the Lord him in the House of Commons upon th* 
 
 High Steward " not to do the like again." amorous propensities of the King. 
 
 b 22 & 23 Car. 2, a 1. '4 Pari. Hist. 473. 
 
 / 4 Pari. Hist. 466, 467. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTING HAM. Chap. XCI. 
 
 In 1671 a keen controversy arose between the two Houses 
 as to the right of the Lords to alter money bills, par- 
 ticularly in lowering rates voted by the Commons, 
 the Lords having unanimously resolved " that the power 
 exercised by them in making amendments and abatements on 
 a bill for imposing duties on foreign commodities, both as to 
 the matter, measure, and time concerning the rates and 
 impositions on merchandise, is a fundamental, inherent, and 
 undoubted right of the House of Peers, from which they can- 
 not depart." There were various conferences on the subject, 
 which were managed, on the part of the Commons, by Mr. 
 Attorney General Finch, who in vain tried to persuade the 
 Lords, by citing precedents, and by appealing to their regard 
 for the wishes and interests of the King, to abandon their 
 amendments, and to pass the bill as it was sent up to them. 
 Neither party would yield, and the bill was lost by a proroga- 
 tion/ But the Commons ultimately prevailed ; and, allowing 
 it to be highly proper that they should guard to themselves 
 the exclusive right of granting the supplies, they have carried 
 their jealousy of amendments by the Lords in money bills to a 
 pitch unnecessary, coxcomical, and often highly detrimental to 
 the public service. 
 
 The promotion of such an interloper as Shaftesbury to the 
 office of Lord Chancellor, upon the removal of Lord 
 " Keeper Bridgeman, must have been a heavy disap- 
 pointment to Finch, who, having been now above twelve 
 years a law officer of the Crown, and having served with 
 applause, must have expected to succeed him "as the night 
 the day." He found it convenient, however, to smother his 
 indignation, and zealously to support his new master, even in 
 the attempt to issue writs for the election of members of the 
 House of Commons of his own authority, without the privity 
 of the Speaker. When this subject came to be debated, Mr. 
 Attorney, forgetting his late fight for the privileges of the 
 Commons, boldly argued that it belonged to the Chancellor to 
 issue the writs in vacation time, saying, " It is a necessity to 
 the public that things may not be carried in a thin House : a 
 Peer may knock at the door, and call for his writ to the Chan- 
 cellor." It was nevertheless resolved, " that all elections upon 
 the writs issued by the Chancellor since the last session are 
 void, and that Mr. Speaker do issue out warrants to the Clerk 
 of the Crown to make out new writs for those places ' And 
 
 i 4 Pari. Hist. 480, 487. 
 
A.D. 1673. MADE LORD KEEPER. 245 
 
 this important and necessary privilege of tlie House of Com- 
 mons has never since been disputed. 
 
 Finch boldly defended the famous "Declaration of Indul- 
 gence," — on the King's universal and absolute dispensing 
 power. "There is no question," said he, "of the King's 
 power of dispensation where the forfeiture is his own. Where 
 half the penalty is to the informer, the King may inform for 
 the whole and dispense for the whole. The question is, whe- 
 ther the King cannot dispense with the laws in order to the 
 preservation of the kingdom ; and we are all miserable if he 
 cannot." s This is the vaunted champion of the laws and con- 
 stitution of his country ! h He first contends for the power of 
 dispensing with all penal laws, on the reasoning that they are 
 only enacted to provide pocket-money for the King, who may 
 therefore renounce what was intended for his private benefit; 1 
 and having established this point, he invests the King with 
 the prerogative of dispensing with all laws which he or his 
 ministers may think inconsistent with the public safety, or, in 
 other words, disagreeable to themselves ! 
 
 His last appearance in the House of Commons was on the 
 31st of October, 1673, when Shaftesbury, openly in- Oct. 3i, 
 triguing with the heads of the country party, was 1673 - 
 about to be turned out. The question was, whether the redress 
 of grievances or the grant of supply should have the prece- 
 dence? — and the aspirant to the Great Seal argued, "that not 
 first to give money is at this time a grievance not to be redressed 
 in many ages." k 
 
 It was presently intimated to him that he was to be Lord 
 Keeper, and the morning of Sunday, the 9th of November, 
 was appointed for his investiture. We have already related 
 the terrible fright he was then thrown into by Shaftesbury's 
 waggery, and how, in the evening of the same day, he was 
 made happy by the Great Seal being actually put into his 
 hand, and his carrying it home with him as the true Lord 
 Keeper." 1 This is the official record of the event : — 
 
 " S r . Heneage Finch, K*. & Bar 1 ., the King's Ma 1 ? 9 Atturny Generall, 
 received the Great Seale of England as Lord Keep r from His Ma'y, at 
 Whitehall, on Sunday, in the evening, being the 9 th of Nov'., 1673, in 
 the 25 th year of his said Ma tys raigne. The King sent for it the samp 
 ( ay from the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Chancellor, by Mr. Secretary 
 Coventry." D 
 
 K 4 Pari. Hist. 522. h 3 Bl. Com. 56. i " Cuique licet renunciare juri pro se introducto. ' 
 * 4 Pari. Hist. 592 m Ante, p. 134. n Crown Off. Hin. Book, fol. 73. 
 
246 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCt 
 
 His first act was to seal a pardon to his predecessor, which 
 had been stipulated for when Shaftesbury took the office, fore- 
 seeing that he might probably do many things for which a 
 pardon might be required, and wishing to have the pleasure 
 of sinning with an indulgence in his pocket. He then sealed 
 a commission authorising the Master of the Eolls and others to 
 hear causes in his absence. 
 
 On the 11th of November the new Lord Keeper had a grand 
 procession from his house, in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, to Westminster Hall, attended by the Lord Treasurer, 
 the Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of 
 Ormond, the Marquis of Worcester, many others of the nobility, 
 the Judges, the King's Counsel, and all the gentlemen of the 
 Society of the Inner Temple. Entering the Court of Chancery, 
 he took the oaths of office, the Master of the Eolls holding the 
 book. 
 
 According to ancient usage he ought then to have delivered 
 an inaugural address, of which high expectations were formed 
 from his rhetorical reputation ; but he immediately called 
 upon the Solicitor-General to move, and proceeded to business. 
 He probably was deterred from attempting a task which, in 
 ordinary circumstances, he could have performed so easily 
 and so gracefully, by the embarrassment of touching upon his 
 predecessor, whom, according to the precedents, he ought to 
 have praised for his learning and exemplary conduct, and 
 proposed to himself as an example to stimulate his love of law 
 and of virtue. 
 
 In a note to his MS. cases, he himself favours us with the 
 following autobiographal account of these occurrences. 
 
 " Sunday, 9 th November, 1673. 
 
 "At six at night I received the Great Seal from his Majesty at 
 Whitehall, and was made C. S. — 10th. I recipi'd my Lord {Shaftesbury's 
 pattent, which came to me from the Privy Seal. It was reported his 
 Lordship kept the bill signed by him above a year and a half, for it was 
 signed before he was Chancellor, as is said, and never meant to send it 
 to the Seals till there was great necessity, and so hath covered all his 
 misdemeanours as Chancellor. But this was a malicious report to his 
 prejudice and mine, as if he had been false, and I too easy in this 
 matter ; for in truth the pardon did extend to the 6th of November, 
 which could not possibly be by virtue of any old warrant : \nt the 
 
 ° Sir Francis North was then Solicitor-General, and was made Attorney-General the follow* 
 bg day 
 
A.D. 1673. CHEATED A PEER. 247 
 
 Chancellor, foreseeing his fall, obtained a warrant for a new pardon, 
 signed by Mr. Secretary Coventry, and Mr. Solicitor North passed it on 
 Saturday the 8th of November, and his Lordship intended to have 
 sealed it as Chancellor, for the Privy Seal was directed to him by that 
 name ; but it was razed in the King's presence, and directed to me by 
 name, with a nuper Cancellarius interlined where it mentioned him. 
 Also I sealed a commission to the Judges and Master of the Rolls to 
 hear causes, for by the change of the C. or C. S. the commission fayles. 
 — 11th. I took my seat and was sworne in Chancery ; but 1 made no 
 speech, as some of my predecessors have done, upon the occasion." 
 
 On the 10th of January, 1674, he was created Baron Fixch, 
 of Daventry, in the county of Northampton; on the 19th of 
 December, 1675, Lord Chancellor of England ; p and on the 
 12th of May, 1681, Earl of Nottingham, which has become 
 his historical name, and by which I shall henceforth designate 
 him. 
 
 CHAPTEE XCII. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD NOTTINGHAM TILL HIS FIRST 
 QUARREL WITH LORD SHAFTESBURY. 
 
 He held the Great Seal and presided in the Court of Chancery 
 nine years, during the whole of which time he de- 
 
 • • A.D 1673 
 
 voted himself with indefatigable labour and with 
 brilliant success to the discharge of his judicial duties. I 
 have sincere delight in relating, for the instruction and im- 
 provement of those who may aspire to rival his fame, the course 
 he pursued. He did not consider his office as chiefly political, 
 nor, anxious only to retain it, did he entirely occupy himself 
 with court intrigues, or the management of a party in par- 
 
 P Of this further elevation we have the in the 27 th year of his Maty" reign, heing the 
 
 following account in his MS. Reports: — first day of Hilary Ternie; the hook beirg 
 
 " Sunday morning. The King going to cha x . ell held to him by Sr. Harbottle Grimston, M r . 
 
 declared me Lord Chancellor, whereupon I of the Rolls, and the oath read by Mr. Bucher, 
 
 kist his hand, and presently had the compli- Clerk of the Crown. 
 
 ments of all the Court, and not long after " His Majesty having been pleased on the 
 
 from all the ambassadors and foreign min- 19th day of December before to take the 
 
 isters." Seale into his own hands, and to deliver it 
 
 ■ The Right Honble. Heneage IA Fincb, to him again by the stile of Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Baron of Daventre, took the oath of Lord " Md. he took only the oath of Chanc r ." - 
 
 Chancellor of England in the High Court of Crown Off. Min. 54 
 Chancery, on Monday the 24th of January 
 
248 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIL 
 
 lianient ; nor did he become indolent and remiss on reaching 
 the great object of his ambition; nor did he dissipate his 
 attention among a variety of pursuits, — from the vulgar 
 ambition of being admired for universality of genius, — which 
 leads generally to universal shallowness of acquirement. 
 Placed at the head of the magistracy of a great country, he 
 deemed it his first duty adequately to administer justice from 
 his own tribunal ; and for this purpose he did not think it 
 enough merely to sit in public a certain number of hours, and 
 to bestow decent pains upon each particular case which came 
 before him. Justly regarding jurisprudence as a science which 
 rests on general principles, and is illustrated and defined by 
 the writings and rules of former jurists, he bore in mind that 
 without a familiarity with these it was impossible that his own 
 decisions should be consistent, systematic, and sound. He had 
 peculiar difficulties to struggle with, — that Equity, which he 
 was to administer, had sprung up originally in England, more 
 from a desire to get at what was thought the justice of a parti- 
 cular case between litigating parties, than to lay dowu me- 
 thodical rules, — that many of his predecessors had been men 
 not educated in the profession of the law, and incapable of ap- 
 prehending legal distinctions, — that their judgments had been 
 generally allowed to fall into oblivion as more likely to 
 mislead than to guide, — and that no attempt had been made 
 to classify or to systematise those which had been preserved. 
 He had the sagacity to discover that Equity might be moulded 
 into a noble code, supplying the deficiencies of the old 
 feudal doctrines, and adapted to the altering necessities of 
 a people whose commerce and wealth were so rapidly in- 
 creasing. 
 
 Lord Nottingham had laid the indispensable foundation for 
 being a great equity lawyer, by a profound knowledge of the 
 ( ommon-law. His notes on Coke upon Littleton, published 
 1 y Hargrave and Butler, in their edition of that great work, 
 ^how how deeply he had studied it, — and several of his 
 arguments handed down to us prove that our other insti- 
 tutional writers were equally familiar to him. He resorted 
 early to a practice, without which great proficiency cannot be 
 attained. — of writing on legal subjects. Besides his digested 
 reports of cases which he had heard argued and determined, 
 he wrote Treatises or Essays " on the King's Prerogative," 
 and " on the Power of Parliament." Later in his career, 
 " Equity " fixed his attention, and while in full practice at 
 
A.D. 1673. HIS CHANCERY TREATISES. 249 
 
 the bar, — either for his own use in Court, or anticipating that 
 he should one day hold the Great Seal, he composed a book, 
 44 De Officio Cancellarii." q 
 
 But all this preparation, joined with most extensive prac- 
 tical experience at the bar, he now considered quite insuffi- 
 cient to enable him to preside creditably in the Court of 
 Chancery. As soon as he received the Great Seal, he began, 
 and he worked indefatigably every moment he could spare 
 from other duties till he had completed, two new treatises, — 
 one on the practice and the other on the principles and 
 doctrines of the Court. The first he entitled "A System 
 or Collection of such Eules and Orders in Chancery as 
 have at any time heretofore been printed or published ; toge- 
 ther with some explanations and alterations thereof, and 
 additions thereunto, as also some observations, — what rules 
 have been lately discontinued and yet may be fit to be revived, 
 and what are fit to be laid aside. By F. C. S." r The other 
 and more important work he entitled " Prolegomena of 
 Equity." This, written in the piebald style then usual 
 among lawyers, a mixture of bad Latin, bad French, and bad 
 English, — contains, under methodical divisions, all that was 
 then known of Equity, as contradistinguished from common 
 law. The reader may be amused with some of the titles : 
 Cap. 6. " Equity versus purchasor ne sera.'' 7. " Equity 
 relieves en plusors cases l'ou les printed livres deny it." 12. 
 "Of Trusts in general, quid sint." 30. " De Anomolies." 
 31. " L'ou les juges del common ley ont agreed to alter it, 
 sans act de parlement, et l'ou nemy," [or " of Judge-made 
 law."] 8 
 
 Thus was he much better acquainted with the practice and 
 
 1 In one of his note books he thus refers to made by himself: "In this copy of Lord 
 
 it : " I took this occasion to show that the Chancellor Nottingham's ' Prolegomena,' 1 
 
 Court of Chancery hath always had an Ad- have adhered closely to Mr. Heneage Legge's 
 
 miralty jurisdiction, not only per viam ap- copy, except that I have avoided the numerous 
 
 pellationis, but per viam evocationis too, and abbreviations in the latter, and that 1 have 
 
 may send for any cause out of the Admiralty translated all the French words, and so made 
 
 to determine it here, of which there are many wbat was almost throughout a mixture of 
 
 precedents in Noy's MS. 88, and in my little French and English, entirely English. The 
 
 book in the preface 'De Officio Cancellarii,' whole of this copy, except a few lines in 
 
 sec. 18, and in my ' Parliament Book,' sec. 8, page 2, is in my own handwriting. But from 
 
 title ' Admiralty.' " the interesting and valuable nature of the 
 
 r These letters C S. show that the work ontents, I did not feel the labour of copying 
 
 was completed before Dec. 1675, when he was and translating as any fatigue."— See Preface 
 
 made Chancellor. to Hale's Jurisdiction of Lords, p. 153. This 
 
 8 The value of this treatise may be ap- MS. treatise is likewise mentioned very re- 
 
 preciated by the observations of that accom- Bvectfully by Sir W. Grant, in the Bishop of 
 
 pushed lawyer, Mr. Hargrave, on a copy of it Winchester v. Paine, 11 V«sey, 200. 
 
250 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCII. 
 
 with the principles and doctrines of the Court than any of 
 the advocates pleading before him, and having previously 
 considered them systematically, he could readily see how they 
 were to be applied, or extended, or restrained. 1 
 
 But what perhaps still more raised his judicial fame was 
 the admirable habit which he adopted, and which has been 
 revived and recommended by illustrious Judges still living, — 
 of writing the judgment to be delivered in every case of im- 
 portance, — whereby the Judge is forced to apprehend accu- 
 rately both facts and law, — becomes fully acquainted with all 
 difficulties and objections before he has publicly committed 
 himself by any opinion, — and lays down and qualifies his 
 positions with more nicety than it is possible for him to do in 
 an extempore speech. In Lord Nottingham's MSS. still 
 extant, are to be found almost all the important judgments he 
 delivered while he held the Great 8eal. u 
 
 It may well be believed that he found the causes in a state 
 of great confusion from the rashness and the timidity which 
 had marked the beginning and the close of the short judicial 
 career of his eccentric predecessor. The new Keeper made 
 no parade of differing from him ; — insomuch that it has been 
 said that hardly any of Lord Shaftesbury's decrees were 
 reversed, (a compliment I find paid almost to every Chan- 
 cellor,) but on re-hearings, he quietly corrected irregularities 
 and mistakes ; and soon the business of the Court was in a 
 better state even than in the time of Lord Keeper Coventry, 
 whose successors had almost demolished the system of equity 
 which he was beginning to create. 
 
 He exerted himself to the utmost to prevent delay, with 
 which, partly from a deficient judicial staff, but more from 
 the nature of the suits, Equity has always been unjustly 
 taunted by the multitude. A case once being mentioned 
 to him in which he was told the bill had been filed previous 
 to the commencement of the civil war, and had been heard 
 and re-heard before all the Lord Chancellors, Lord Keepers, 
 
 * Chief Justice Pemberton used to boast the resignation of his office of Chief Justice, 
 
 " that while he was a Judge, he had for his — and another details how on Sunday, the 
 
 own share made more law than King, Lords, 12th of Feb., 1678, the King, on returning 
 
 and Commons, since the time he was born." from Chapel, sent for the Chancellor to wait 
 
 a There are in all 1170. In the folio vo- upon him alone in his closet at Whitehall, 
 
 lume containing them are to be found a few and there desired him to attest a document 
 
 scattered memoranda, which show what a written with his own hand, the purport of 
 
 valuable Diary he might have kept. Under which was " that he had never been married 
 
 date Feb. 21, 1675, there is an account of Sir to the Duke of Monmouth's mother, oi to 
 
 Matthew Hale coming into Chancery, to enrol any one except Queen Katherine." 
 
A.D, 1673. AS A STATESMAN. 251 
 
 and Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal who had sat in 
 Chancery ever since, he instantly appointed a time for its 
 being finally disposed of, and declared that he would rather 
 sit on five or six days, himself making inquiries and taking 
 accounts, than it should again be referred to a Master and 
 continue the opprobrium of the Court." 
 
 Lord Nottingham never even incurred the suspicion of 
 bribery, or of being influenced by the solicitations of King or 
 Courtiers. Luckily for him, no political case came before 
 him in' the Court of Chancery, and his fame is untarnished 
 by the charge of having given way to party bias. We aie 
 therefore allowed to look up to him as a Judge with un- 
 mixed admiration. He was one of the most distinguished 
 and meritorious of the great men who have adorned the 
 magistracy in England, and who, if they have not hitherto 
 acquired such general celebrity, may well bear a comparison 
 with the Oxenstierns, Moles, and D'Aguesseaus of the conti- 
 nental nations. 
 
 I wish I could be excused from following his track as a 
 statesman, where, although his conduct may be palliated, it 
 cannot possibly be defended. Taking no lead in the cabinet, 
 he is not chargeable with originating bad measures, like 
 Shaftesbury ; but he gave himself up implicitly to those 
 ministers who successively ruled in the King's name, con- 
 curring in their policy, and openly and indiscriminately jus- 
 tifying it, whatever it might be. He seems to have considered 
 himself merely as the retained advocate of the Court, bound 
 in duty to do the best for his clients, according to the in- 
 structions he received from them, without any misgivings 
 that he compromised his own character by trying to show 
 that criminal acts were innocent, or by using arguments 
 which he must have known to be fallacious. 
 
 It has been urged in his defence, that his only choice was 
 to go over to the country party, whose measures, at this time, 
 were still more reprehensible ; but it will be seen that, to 
 weaken that party, he was willing to advance beyond them in 
 their worst excesses ; and if, after vigorous efforts, he could 
 not influence the counsels of the government to which he be- 
 
 * The late Mr. Jekyll told me that soon but looking a littl surprised, the solicitor 
 after he was called to the bar, a strange soli- 6aid to him, " I thought you had a sort of 
 citor coming up to him in Westminster Hall, right, sir, to this motion, for the bill was 
 begged him to step into the Court of Chan- drawn by Sir Joseph Jekyll, your great- 
 eery to make a motion of course, and gave granduncle. in the reign of Quee.-? Vnne." 
 him a fee. The young barrister pleased, 
 
252 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCII. 
 
 longed, he had always before him an honourable retreat in a 
 private station. 
 
 We have very scanty accounts of his parliamentary efforts 
 after he held the Great Seal, — except of his speeches on the 
 opening of parliament, which are not at all interesting, being 
 vague and dull, and instead of containing, as formerly, lively 
 personal sallies, evidently bearing marks of having been, like 
 modern royal speeches, elaborated in the cabinet. 
 
 The first of these he delivered on the 7th of January, 1674, 
 Jan. 7, — according to the absurd fashion of the Lord Keeper 
 1674 - addressing the two Houses, when the King had con- 
 cluded, and after kneeling down and receiving directions from 
 his Majesty, — reciting an oration before his Majesty in his 
 Majesty's praise. Having enumerated the recent measures ot 
 the government, which he imputes to the wisdom and virtue 
 of the King, he says, on this occasion, " These are not single 
 and transient acts, but- such acts as flow from habits ; these are 
 not leaves and blossoms, but true, solid, and lasting fruits. 
 Long! long! may that royal tree live and flourish upon 
 which these fruits do grow ! ' He is not less complimentary, 
 nor more sincere, in speaking of the parliament, which had 
 become very troublesome and factious. " Posterity will 
 have cause to doubt which was the greater felicity of the 
 two, that Providence which restored the Crown, or that 
 which sent us such a parliament to preserve it when it was 
 restored. What may not the King now hope from you ? 
 What may not you assure yourselves from him? Can any 
 thins: be difficult to hearts so united, to interests so twisted 
 and interwoven together as the King's and yours are ? 
 Doubtless the King will surpass himself, at this time, in en- 
 deavouring to procure the good of the kingdom. Do you but 
 excel yourselves, too, in the continued evidences of your 
 affections, and then the glory of reviving the state will be 
 entirely due to this session. Then they who wait for the 
 languishing and the declination of the present government 
 will be amazed to see so happy a crisis, so blest a revolution ; 
 and ages to come will find cause to celebrate your memories 
 as the truest physicians, the wisest councillors, the noblest 
 patriots, and the best session of the best parliament that ever 
 King or kingdom met with." y 
 
 The response was an address for a fast for the heinous sins 
 pf the nation, and the introduction of measures for the im- 
 
 y 4 Pari. Hist. 612. 
 
A.D. 1675. PASSIVE OBEDIENCE TEST BILL. 253 
 
 peachment of tne Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of Lauder- 
 dale, and the Earl of Arlington. 
 
 In the session of 1675 the policy of the Court was to outbid 
 the Opposition in zeal for Protestantism ; and the Lord April, 
 Keeper said, "His Majesty has considered religion. 1675 - 
 first, in general, as it is Protestant, and stands opposed to 
 Popery ; and upon this account it is that he hath awakened 
 all the laws against the Papists : there is not one statute 
 extant in all the volume of our laws but his Majesty has now 
 put it in a way of taking its full course against them. His Ma- 
 jesty, with equal and impartial justice, hath revived all the 
 laws against dissenters and nonconformists, but not with 
 equal severity ; for the laws against the Papists are edged, and 
 the execution of them quickened by new rewards proposed to 
 the informers ; those against dissenters are left to that strength 
 which they have already." 2 The only subject which shares 
 his solicitude for the true religion is " the excess of new 
 buildings near London and Vy estminster ; a growing mischief 
 which nothing but a new law can put a stop to : a mischief 
 which, for a long time, hath depopulated the country, and now 
 begins to depopulate the city too, by leaving a great part of 
 it uninhabited.'"' a 
 
 The cry of " No Popeiy" which the ministers now bawled 
 out more loudly than their antagonists, brought them into 
 such favour that they thought to crush Shaftesbury for ever 
 by " the Passive Obedience Test Bill," requiring an oath 
 never to attempt any change in the law respecting either 
 church or state. This was strenuously supported by Lord 
 Nottingham, and being carried in the Lords after seventeen 
 days' debate, was considered as having for ever extinguished 
 free discussion in parliament and in the country, — when it was 
 defeated by the controversy got up between the two Houses 
 respecting the right of the Lords to entertain appeals from 
 Courts of Equity.* The Chancellor had the sagacity to see 
 the trap laid for the government ; but he had not the address 
 to avoid it. He was bound to second the resolutions which 
 Shaftesbury moved, asserting the jurisdiction of the Lords 
 for the alleged benefit of the community, " who must other- 
 wise depend on the caprice of the Sovereign to grant or to re- 
 fuse a commission of appeal," — and he could not control the 
 fervour of the friends of the government in the other House, 
 who, mad on this question of privilege, disregarded all party 
 
 ■ 4 Pari. Hist. 673. a Ibid. 674. b Ante p. 186 
 
254 LOUD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCII. 
 
 predilections, and stood up for their own notions of the rights 
 of their order. 
 
 During these debates, the Ex-Chancellor and the reigning 
 Lord Chancellor being pitted against each other, the latter suf- 
 fered severely. I have already related his discomfiture, when, 
 thinking Shaftesbury had committed himself by declaring, " I 
 know not what is meant by the Protestant religion," he rashly 
 exclaimed, " Tell it not in Gath." c On a subsequent day, hav- 
 ing been hard pressed by some taunts upon his late measures, 
 — instead of vindicating himself, he sought to recriminate by 
 thanking God that he did not advise the breaking of the 
 Triple Alliance ; that he did not advise the shutting up of the 
 Exchequer ; and that he did not advise the Dutch war. The 
 King being present, Shaftesbury, with much dexterity, con- 
 veyed an impression that he himself was not responsible for 
 proposing these measures — without naming the author of 
 them. Lord Arlington, who disliked the Chancellor, asked 
 the King which of the two had acted most respectfully towards 
 him ; since he knew how open Lord Shaftesbury could have 
 laid those affairs, and yet, under such provocations, he only 
 cleared himself, and still kept the secret. The King there- 
 upon rebuked the Chancellor for meddling with the secrets of 
 the Council in so public a place, and told him " he knew 
 nothing of those matters." d 
 
 But in the vicissitudes of political warfare, Nottingham had 
 by-and-by the satisfaction to witness Shaftesbury's 
 blunders, in contending that, after an adjournment 
 for fifteen months, the parliament was ipsojacto dissolved. He 
 was obliged, it is true, to resort in debate to the miserable 
 quibble that the words " yearly, and oftener if need be," in 
 the statute of Edward III., for the frequent holding of parlia- 
 ments, gave the King a discretion to decide whether there 
 be need to summon a parliament yearly ; but he addressed a 
 willing audience, eager to swallow any sophistry which flat- 
 tered their prejudices ; and, finding it his " painful duty " to 
 move the commitment of the four leaders of the opposition to 
 the Tower, he saw them marched off in custody, and himself 
 and his friends left in undisputed possession of the field of 
 battle. 
 
 The happiest period of his life probably was the fifteen 
 months during which Shaftesbury lay a prisoner in the Tower, 
 — particularly after the Court of King's Bench refused to dis 
 
 c Ante, p. 187. d llartyn's Life of Shaftesbury, i. 423. 
 
A.D. 1.379. SUPPORTS THE POPISH PLOT. 255 
 
 charge liim, and it was quite certain that, being at the mercy 
 of a ministerial majority in the Lords, the agitator must make 
 humiliating concessions, or continue in a state of suspended 
 animation. But his most swelling moment, no doubt, was 
 that when Shaftesbury, seeming to have fallen, like Lucifer, 
 never to rise again, — on bended knee, — amidst the scoffs of 
 foes, and the blushes of his friends, — repeated after him the 
 abject apology, " I, Anthony," e &c, — acknowledging his hei- 
 nous transgression, — expressing his deep contrition, — and 
 promising amendment of life. 
 
 The Popish plot soon saved Shaftesbury from shame and 
 insignificance, — and that breaking out, he was, in a moment, 
 more formidable than he had ever been. 
 
 In viewing Lord Nottingham's conduct at this crisis, we 
 must charitably suppose that, like Lord Eussell, and other very 
 sensible persons, he was the dupe of Titus Oates ; for, other- 
 wise, we must set him down as one of the most infamous of 
 mankind, — premeditatedly dealing in calumny and murder to 
 serve his own selfish ends. — At the opening of the session of 
 1679, he said, — 
 
 " At home we had need to look about us ; for his Majesty's royal 
 person hath been in danger by a conspiracy against his sacred M . 
 life, maliciously contrived and industriously carried on by 
 those Seminary Priests and Jesuits, and their adherents, who think 
 themselves under some obligation of conscience to effect it ; and having 
 vowed the subversion of the true religion amongst us, find no way so 
 likely to compass it as to wound us in the head, and to kill the Defender 
 of the Faith. It hath ever been the practice of those votaries first to 
 murder the fame of princes, and then their persons ; first to slander them 
 to their people as if they favoured Papists, and then to assassinate them 
 for being too zealous Protestants. Enough hath appeared to bring 
 some capital offenders to public justice ; some of the traitors have been 
 executed ; several priests have been arrested and imprisoned ; all are 
 hiding themselves and lurking in secret corners, like the sons of dark- 
 ness. But their expectations are vain, as their designs are wicked ; for 
 his Majesty hath already begun to let them see with what severity he 
 means to proceed against them. He hath passed a law to disable all 
 the nobility and gentry of that faction ever to sit in Parliament ; and, 
 not content with that, he did offer to the last parliament, and does 
 a r ain renew the same offer to this parliament, to pass any farther laws 
 against Popery." f 
 
 There is therefore no foundation for the attempts which 
 have been made to fix the odium of the Popish plot, and of 
 
 • Ante, p. 196. * 4 Pari. Hist. 1087, 1111 
 
256 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIL 
 
 all the atrocities perpetrated in consequence of it, exclusively 
 on the liberal party ; for the Tories, represented by Danby 
 and Nottingham, either under delusion,— or, what would be 
 infinitely worse, — knowingly, — from sinister motives, — joined 
 with eagerness in inflaming the multitude, and hallooing them 
 on to blood. 
 
 While the disgraceful ceremony was proceeding of the sa- 
 crifice of Lord Stafford, Nottingham gave the most 
 
 V D 1630. . . 
 
 decided proof of his own fanaticism or rascality. Pre- 
 siding as Lord High Steward, — I am afraid he showed, by his 
 address to the prisoner, at the very opening of the trial, that 
 this virtuous man was prejudged. "As it is," said he, " im- 
 possible for my Lords to condemn the innocent, so it is equally 
 impossible that they should clear the guilty. If, therefore, 
 you have been agitated by a restless zeal to promote that which 
 you call the Catholic cause ; if this zeal have engaged you in 
 such deep and black designs as you are charged with, and this 
 charge shall be fully proved, then you must expect to reap 
 what you have sown ; for every work must and ought to receive 
 the wages that are due to it." g 
 
 When a verdict of guilty had been given by a majority of 
 fifty-five, consisting of the Lord High Steward, the Lord Presi- 
 dent of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, and many high- 
 church Peers, against thirty-one, comprising Lord Holies, and 
 several other Presbyterian Peers, and a motion in arrest of 
 judgment had been overruled, — his Grace proceeded to pass 
 sentence (according to the expression of Evelyn, who was pre- 
 sent) " with greate solemnity and dreadful gravity." 
 
 Lord High Steward. " My Lord Stafford, my part which remains 
 is a very sad one ; for I never yet gave sentence of death upon any 
 man, and anr extremely sorry that I must begin with your Lordship. 
 Who would have thought that a person of your quality, of so noble an 
 extraction, of so considerable estate and fortune, so eminent a sufferer 
 in the late ill times, so interested in the preservation of the govern- 
 ment, so much obliged to the moderation of it, and so personally 
 obliged to the King and his royal father for their particular favours to 
 you, should ever have entered into so infernal a conspiracy as to con- 
 trive the murder of the King, the ruin of the state, the subversion of 
 the religion, and, as much as in you lay, the destruction of all the 
 souls and bodies of three Christian nations ? And yet the impeachment 
 of the House of Commons amounts to no less a charge, and of thia 
 charge their Lordships have found you guilty. That there hath been a 
 
 8 1 St. Tr. 1297. 
 
A.D. 1680. PASSES SENTENCE ON LORD STAFFORD. 257 
 
 general and desperate conspiracy of the Papists, and that the death of 
 the King hath been all along one chief part of the conspirators' design, 
 is now apparent beyond all possibility of doubting. "What was the 
 meaning of all those treatises, which were published about two years 
 since, against the oath of allegiance, in a time when no man dreamt of 
 such a controversy ? "What was the meaning of Father Conyers's 
 sermon upon the same subject, but only because there was a demonstra- 
 tion of zeal, as they call it, intended against the person of the King, 
 which the scruples arising from that oath did somewhat hinder ? To 
 what purpose were all the correspondencies with foreign nations ? the 
 collections of money among the Fathers abroad and at home ? "What 
 was the meaning of their governing themselves here by such advices as 
 came frequently from Paris and St. Omer's? And how shall we 
 expound that letter which came from Ireland, to assure the Fathers 
 here, that all things were in readiness there too, as soon as the blow 
 should be '_iven? Does any man now begin to doubt how London came 
 to be burnt f Or by what ivays and means poor' Justice Godfrey f til ? 
 And is it not apparent, by these instances, that such is the frantic zeal 
 of some bigoted Papists, that they resolve no means to advance the 
 Catholic cause shall be left unattempted, though it be by fire and sword ? 
 My Lord, as the plot in general is most manifest, so your Lordship's 
 part in it hath been too plain. What you did in Paris, and continued 
 to do at Tisall, in Staffordshire, shows a settled purpose of mind against 
 the King ; and what you said at London touching honest "Will, shows 
 that you were acquainted with that conspiracy against the King's life, 
 which was carrying on here too : and in all this there was a great 
 degree of malice ; for your Lordship at one time called the King 
 1 heretic' and ' traitor to God;' and at another time you reviled him for 
 misplacing his bounty, and rewarding none but traitors and rebels. 
 And thus you see, that which the wise man forewarned you of, is come 
 upon you : — ' Curse not the King, no not in thy heart : for the birds of 
 the air shall reveal, and that which hath wings will declare the matter.'' 
 Three things I shall presume to recommend to your Lordship's con- 
 sideration. In the first place, your Lordship sees how it hath pleased 
 God to leave you so far to yourself, that you are fallen into the snare, 
 and into the pit which you were digging for others. Consider, therefore, 
 that God Almighty never yet left any man who did not first leave him. 
 In the next place, think a little better of it than hitherto you have 
 done, what kind of religion that is, in which the blind guides have 
 been able to lead you into so much ruin and destruction as is now like 
 to befall you. In the last place, I pray your Lordship to consider, that 
 true repentance is never too late. A devout, penitential sorrow, joined 
 with an humble and hearty confession, is of mighty power and efficacy 
 both with God and man. There have been some of late who have 
 refused to give God the glory of his justice, by acknowledging- the 
 crimes for which they were condemned ; nay, who have been taught to 
 believe, that it is a mortal sin to confess that crime in public for which 
 they have been absolved in private, and so have not dared to give God 
 VOL. IV. S 
 
258 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCH, 
 
 that glory which otherwise they would have done. God forbid your 
 Lordship should rest upon forms ! God forbid your Lordship should be 
 found among the number of those poor forsaken souls, whom the first 
 thing that undeceives is death itself ! Perhaps your Lordship may not 
 much esteem the prayers of those whom you have long been taught to 
 miscall heretics ; but whether you do or no, I am to assure your Lord- 
 ship, that all my Lords here, even they that have condemned you, will 
 never cease to pray for you, that the end of your life may be Christian 
 and pious, how tragical soever the means are that must bring you 
 thither. And now, my Lord, this is the last time that I can call you 
 ' My Lord,' for the next words I am to speak will attaint you. The 
 judgment of the law is, and this Court doth award that, ' You go to the 
 place from whence you came ; from thence you must be drawn upon a 
 hurdle to the place of execution ; when you come there, you must be 
 hanged up by the neck, but not till you are dead, for you must be cut 
 down alive,' " &c. &c. 
 
 Lord Stafford begged that he might no longer be kept a 
 close prisoner as he had long been, and that his wife and 
 children might be admitted to see him till his death. 
 
 L. H. S. " My Lord Stafford, I believe I may with my Lords' leave 
 tell you one thing farther, that my Lords, as they proceed with rigour 
 of justice, so they proceed with all the mercy and compassion that may 
 be ; and therefore my Lords will be humble suitors to the King, that 
 he will remit all punishment but the taking off your head." 
 
 His Grace, complacently swelling with the consciousness of 
 his humane intentions, then broke his white staff, and dissolved 
 the Commission. 11 
 
 He received the thanks of the House of Lords for his speech 
 in passing sentence, and was desired to print it. 1 Nevertheless, 
 his conduct upon this occasion, it must be acknowledged, 
 reflects deep disgrace upon his memory, and greatly detracts 
 from the respect with which we should regard him as a civil 
 Judge. Assuming that he was carried away by the general 
 frenzy, — not imputing to him the diabolical purpose of trying 
 to gain a wretched popularity to the government by shedding 
 innocent Mood, — he is still to be severely censured. Placed in 
 his elevated position — 
 
 " Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre 
 Errare, atque viam palanteis quarere vita* " — 
 
 h 7 St. Tr. 1217-1558. indecency in it; for he said, 'Who can doubt 
 
 i Lords' Journ. Dec. 7, 1680. Burnet says, any longer that London was burnt by the 
 
 " Lord Nottingham, when he gave judgment, Papists?' though there was not one word tn 
 
 delivered it with one of the best speeches he the whole trial relating to that matter." 
 had ever made. But he committed one great 
 

 A.D. 1679. IMPEACHMENT OF DANBY. 259 
 
 it was his duty to have guided the peerage of England to 
 the rescue of an innocent man, instead of acting as their high 
 priest to offer him up a victim to the idols of bigotry and pre- 
 judice. 
 
 If he was sincere, it may mitigate our censure of his cre- 
 dulity to recollect that it was shared by the virtuous Lord 
 Russell, who upon this occasion went so far as even to question 
 the power of the King to mitigate the sentence in the mannei 
 suggested by the Lord Chancellor, — on the ground that the 
 prosecution was not by the King, but by the House of Commons. 
 The repugnance to cruelty which can never be extinguished 
 in the English nation, operated so powerfully upon this occa- 
 sion, that the Chancellor prevailed, without difficulty, in having 
 the whole of the sentence remitted except the beheading, and 
 the House of Commons magnanimously resolved, " that this 
 House is content that the sheriffs of London and Middlesex do 
 execute William, late Viscount Stafford, by severing his head 
 from his body only." k 
 
 The Chancellor found himself involved in a most serious 
 controversy with the Commons, from the attempt made to 
 stop their prosecution of the Earl of Danby. The impossibility 
 was at last discovered of longer retaining this minister, who, 
 notwithstanding all his arts to court popularity, had become 
 generally odious.™ Charles was now willing to abandon him ; 
 but he dreaded the trial of the impeachment, which would have 
 brought out his secret treaties with France, the bribes March 1679 
 he had received from that country, and various other 
 secrets of his misrule. The expedient resorted to was to grant 
 a pardon to Danby, which should be pleaded in bar of the 
 impeachment. But a parliamentary impeachment never had 
 been so stopped ; and although Nottingham would probably 
 have got over his doubts as to the regularity of the proceed- 
 ing, if it had been perfectly safe to himself, — he knew that 
 he must give deep offence to the House of Commons by 
 putting the Great Seal to such an instrument, and that the 
 power of the country party was there at that time almost 
 irresistible. He therefore refused to pass the pardon. Still 
 the impeachment must be stopped. He would not voluntarily 
 
 k Com. Journ. Dec. 23, 1680. It is some Lord Treasurer : " The Lord C. is more my 
 
 consolation to think, that this infamous at- Lord Danby's friend than any body ; he got 
 
 tainder has been reversed, and that his him to keep his stall ten days, which cost the 
 
 honours and estates are now enjoyed by his King 200,0001."— H. Sydney '» Diary \ vol. i 
 
 descendants. p. 3. 
 
 m Nottingham was the last to give up tbs 
 
 s2 
 
2G0 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIL 
 
 resign. There was no desire of getting rid of a Chancellor 
 usually so complying. Under such, circumstances this most 
 unworthy trick was practised, — devised by whom I know 
 not, — but, I am ashamed to say, sanctioned by Nottingham. 
 The pardon, being drawn up in proper fonn, was delivered 
 to the King ; Nottingham was summoned to Whitehall, and 
 desired to bring the Great Seal with him. On his arrival, 
 he was desired to seal the pardon. He begged leave respect- 
 fully to inform his Majesty that he had such scruples as to 
 the regularity of granting a pardon pending a parliamentary 
 impeachment, that he must be excused doing so without 
 farther consideration. The King then took the Seal from 
 him, and either affixed it to the pardon with his own hand, or 
 caused this to be done by an officer of the Court acting under 
 his orders. He then handed the pardon to the Earl of Danby, 
 and taking up the Seal returned it to the Earl of Nottingham, 
 saying, " Take it back, my Lord; I know not where to be- 
 stow it better." 
 
 The pardon being pleaded in bar of the further prosecution 
 of the impeachment, the Commons were thrown into a fury, 
 and appointed a select committee to inquire into the maimer 
 in which it had been granted. The committee finding no 
 entry of the pardon in any of the public offices, requested 
 information on the subject from the Lord Chancellor, who 
 stated to them how " his Majesty commanded the Seal to be 
 taken out of the bag, which his Lordship was obliged to 
 submit unto, it not being in his power to hinder it, and 
 then writing his name on the top of the parchment, had the- 
 pardon sealed ; and that at the very time of affixing the Seal 
 to the parchment he did not look upon himself to have the 
 custody of the Seal." n The Commons sent a message to the 
 Lords demanding justice on the Earl of Danby, and an ad-, 
 dress to the King, complaining of the irregularity and ille- 
 gality of the pardon. 
 
 Although Danby, after a temporary concealment, surren- 
 dered himself, and was committed to the Tower, where he 
 lay under this charge five years, — on account of the tem- 
 porary introduction of Shaftesbury into the ministry, and the 
 rapid events which followed till the dissolution of the Oxford 
 parliament, the impeachment was not prosecuted, and the 
 grand question which the plea in bar raised was never judi- 
 cially determined. Nor was it even expressly set at rest by 
 
 n 4 ParL Hist. 1114. 11 St.Tr. 766 
 
A.D. 1679. HIS QUARREL WITH SHAFTESBURY. 261 
 
 the Bill of Eights, notwithstanding a vote of the House of 
 Commons at the time of the Eevolution, that a pardon is not 
 pleadable in bar of an impeachment. But at last, by the 
 Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 W. 3, c. 2, it was enacted " That 
 no pardon under the Great Seal of England be pleadable to 
 an impeachment by the Commons in parliament." This 
 restriction is necessary for discovering and exposing minis- 
 terial delinquency ; but after conviction the power of pardon 
 is vested in the Crown, to bo exercised by responsible ad- 
 visers, — where the prosecution has been by impeachment as 
 well as in the name of the King, although, according to the 
 old law, where a capital prosecution was instituted by appeal 
 at the suit of the party injured the prosecutor might pardon, 
 but the King could not. p 
 
 It must have been an amusing sight, immediately after this 
 controversy about Danby's pardon, during which Shaftesbury 
 had vowed that " he would have Nottingham's head," to have 
 seen the two sitting next each other in council, and seemingly 
 on terms of cordiality. But they hated each other as much 
 as ever, and secretly prepared for a rupture. Nottingham, 
 not venturing openly to oppose Shaftesbury's Habeas Corpus 
 Bill, in vain intrigued to have it thrown out, by the expedient 
 of a difference between the two Houses, which had been so 
 successfully worked against himself. 
 
 Hopes were entertained that Shaftesbury might now be 
 prevailed upon to give up his Exclusion Bill ; but he, feeling 
 that his only chance of permanent power was to compel the 
 King to take him for his sole minister, and to recognise Mon- 
 mouth fur his successor, thwarted the measures of Notting- 
 ham and the inner cabinet, and showed himself as hostile as 
 ever to the Duke of York. It was no surprise to Nottingham, 
 although it was to Shaftesbury, when the King, without any 
 previous deliberation with the Council, suddenly turned 
 round to him, and ordered him first to prepare a commission 
 for proroguing parliament, and then a proclamation to dis- 
 solve it. q 
 
 Shaftesbury being immediately turned out of office, Notting- 
 ham and he for the rest of their days were at open and mortal 
 enmity with each other. 
 
 After the conviction on impeachment of the six rebel lords in 1715, three cf them 
 were pardoned. P 4 BL Com. 400. * Ant* p. 183. 
 
262 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIII 
 
 CHAPTER XCIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 During the short parliament which, met in October, 1680, 
 Nottingham, under the Earl of Halifax, assisted the 
 ministerial majority in the House of Lords to coun- 
 teract the schemes of Shaftesbury, who made a stout fight in his 
 own House, and dictated all the resolutions of the other. The 
 Exclusion Bill being renewed in the Commons was followed 
 up by addresses to remove Halifax and Seymour, who opposed 
 it, and by impeachments of Scroggs, Jeffreys, and North, for 
 their obstruction of the prosecution of the Duke of York as 
 a Popish recusant, and their interference with the right of 
 petitioning. In spite of Nottingham's very superior legal 
 acquirements, Shaftesbury seems generally to have had the 
 advantage over him in debate, even on constitutional ques- 
 tions, — the " Patriot" making up for his deficiency in know- 
 ledge by boldness of assertion and bitterness of sarcasm. The 
 poor Lord Chancellor, leading such an uneasy life, must have 
 very heartily concurred in the resolution to put a sudden end 
 Jan. is, to this parliament ; and, thankful for the respite, 
 i68i. must joyfully have pronounced the words by which 
 it was dissolved, although another was summoned to meet at 
 Oxford as a last experiment, before laying parliaments en- 
 tirelv aside. 
 
 On the last day of the session he assisted the King in a most 
 unworthy manoeuvre, — to steal from the table a disagreeable 
 Bill, which both Houses had passed "for the Protection of 
 Dissenters from being prosecuted for not going to their parish 
 church," — so that it was defeated without the odium of a 
 public exercise of the royal veto/ This affair might have led 
 to very serious consequences to the Chancellor if he had been 
 questioned for it by a patriotic House of Commons, backed 
 by an approving public ; but the House of Commons was 
 outrageously factious — the public were disgusted with theil 
 representatives, — and he escaped. 
 
 r A >te, p. 215. 
 
A.D. 1680-82. IMPEACHMENT OF F1TZHAER1S. 263 
 
 When the Oxford Parliament met, fortune favoured him in 
 every thing. The Commons took up with much eagerness 
 the stealing of the Dissenters' Eelief Bill ; but they rejected 
 with contumely all the King's proffered concessions t*> 
 guard the reformed religion from the Popish successor by 
 banishing him from the kingdom for life, and providing that 
 the next Protestant heir should govern as Pegent in his 
 name; — and, to defeat the government prosecution of their 
 informer Fitzharris, they resolved that they would themselves 
 impeach him for high treason before the House of Lords. 
 This last was Shaftesbury's fatal blunder. A great many 
 Protestant zealots still stuck by him for the "exclusion," 
 while the more discerning members of his party now saw 
 through his design of gaining power to himself by trying to 
 establish the legitimacy of the Duke of Monmouth, — but 
 nearly all were shocked by observing a capital prosecution 
 sported with as an instrument of faction, and an attempt to 
 try a commoner for his life before those who were not his 
 peers. 
 
 Nottingham dexterously seized the advantage presented 
 him, and advised the Lords to reject the impeachment, on the 
 ground that Fitzharris, as a commoner, was entitled to be tried 
 for this offence by a jury of commoners. We have a very 
 imperfect report of his speech on this occasion ; but he seems 
 very successfully to have thrown odium on the House of 
 Commons for betraying the rights of their constituents, under 
 pretence of supporting their own privileges ; and he brought 
 forward, with prodigious effect, the precedent of the judgment 
 on the murderers of Edward II., where it was declared in full 
 parliament that commoners should not thereafter be tried on 
 a capital charge by the House of Lords. 5 
 
 While the Commons voted the rejection of the impeach- 
 ment " a denial of justice," the nation on this question took 
 part with the Lords ; and the sudden dissolution of the par- 
 liament gave a decided victory to the Court. 1 
 
 Here ended Nottingham's senatorial career, the King ruling 
 by high prerogative alone during the rest of his reign. 
 
 He had on two other occasions, which I have not mentioned, 
 presided in the Lords as High Steward on the trial a .d. icso— 
 of Peers. The first was that of the Earl of Pembroke 1682 - 
 and Montgomery, for the murder of a Mr. Cony in an affray in 
 
 8 See ante, p. 217. Hale's Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, c. xiv. 
 * 4 Pari. Hist. 1298-ILCjO. 
 
264 iX)RD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI1L 
 
 a tavern. In a note to his MS. Reports, Nottingham has left 
 an account of the ceremonial on this occasion, to which he 
 beems to have attached great importance. "Being come to 
 the Lords' House, and retired to putt on my robes, after 
 prayers said, wee adjourned the House into Westminster Hall, 
 and went, in the order prescribed, through the Painted Cham- 
 ber, Court of Requests, and Court of V\ ards, into the Hall. 
 In which procession the Duke of York and Prince Rupert," to 
 do honour to the King's Lieutenant (for so they called me), 
 gave me the precedence, and suffered me to come last all the 
 while, till the try all was over and the white staff broken. 
 When we came into Westminster Hall, the Court was pre- 
 pared like the House of Peers in all points ; with scaffolds on 
 each side for the spectators, and a place for all the foreign 
 ministers. So the Lords spirituall and temporall did quickly 
 know their own places. I took my place upon the woolsack, 
 near the cloth of state, but not directly under it, haveing first 
 made my obeysance to the chaire, and then to the King and 
 Queen, who satt by al incognito." 
 
 The Lord High Steward is reported to have delivered a 
 preliminary address to the noble prisoner, by way of en- 
 couraging him, which seems to have been in a strange taste : 
 " Let not the disgrace of standing as a felon at the bar too 
 much deject you ; no man's credit can fall so low but that if 
 he bear his shame as he should do, and profit by it as he ought 
 to do, it is in his own power to redeem his reputation. There- 
 fore let no man despair that desires and endeavours to recover 
 himself again ; much less let the terrors of justice affright you ; 
 for though your Lordship have great cause to fear, yet what- 
 ever may be lawfully hoped for, your Lordship may expect 
 from the Peers." 
 
 Lord Pembroke, being found guilty of manslaughter, was 
 discharged with an admonition, that upon a second conviction 
 for the like offence he would be liable to be hanged.* 
 
 The other case occurred soon after, and excited considerable 
 interest, being that of a minor peer, a school-boy, prosecuted 
 for the murder of a companion, with whom he had quarrelled 
 in the palace at Whitehall. The Lord High Steward's ad- 
 dress, to encourage the accused, was again any thing but en- 
 couraging : "My Lord Cornwallis, the violation of the King's 
 peace, in the chief sanctuary of it, his own royal palace, and 
 in so high a manner as by the death of one of his subjects, is 
 
 Duke of Cambridge,— but be etill weut by his nom de gueire. x 6 St. Tr. 1309 
 
A.D. 16*0-62. HIS UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONDUCT. 265 
 
 a matter that must be accounted for. It is your Lordship's 
 great unhappiness, at this time, to stand prisoner at the bar 
 under the weight of no less a charge than an indictment of 
 murder. And it is not to be wondered at if so great a misfor- 
 tune as this be attended with some sort of confusion of face ; 
 when a man sees himself become a spectacle of misery in so 
 great a presence, and before so noble and so illustrious an 
 assembly. But be not yet dismayed, my Lord, for all this : 
 let not the terrors of justice so amaze and surprise you as to 
 betray those succours that your reason would afford you, or 
 to disarm you of those helps which good discretion may ad- 
 minister, and which are now so necessary. It is indeed a 
 dreadful thing to fall into the hands of justice, where the law 
 is the rule, and a severe and inflexible measure both of life 
 and death." 
 
 It turned out, however, that the poor young Lord was hardly 
 at all to blame ; and notwithstanding strong speeches against 
 him by Sir ^ illiam Jones, the Attorney-General, and old Ser- 
 jeant Maynard, and that he was not allowed counsel to assist 
 him, he was acquitted both of murder and manslaughter, to 
 the great joy of the by-standers. y 
 
 Nottingham survived the dissolution of the Oxford parlia- 
 ment nearly two years, and, continuing Chancellor, is chiefly 
 responsible for the unconstitutional system of government by 
 which justice was perverted, and every institution was at- 
 tacked which had a tendency to check the arbitrary will of 
 the Sovereign. He sanctioned the execution of Fitzharris for 
 publishing a libel, and of College, " the Protestant joiner," for 
 making violent speeches at public meetings ; — he approved of 
 the plan of wreaking the vengeance of the Court on the popular 
 leaders, by prosecuting them for high treason ; — he signed the 
 warrant for the arrest of Shaftesbury, and his commitment to 
 the Tower, on the unfounded charge of having conspired to 
 control the King at Oxford by military violence ; — he kept his 
 political opponent many months illegally imprisoned, refusing 
 either to discharge him or to bring him to trial ; — and he con- 
 curred in the irregular attempts to prevail on a grand jury to 
 find an indictment for high treason against him, — intending, if 
 the indictment had been found, to sit upon his trial as Lord 
 High Steward, and, with the assistance of Peers to be selected 
 fer the occasion, to have consigned him to the scaffold. "What 
 is still more culpable, he poisoned the fountains of justice. He 
 
 T 7 Tr 143 
 
266 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XC1IL 
 
 rei/.oved from the Commission of the Peace, throughout Frig- 
 land, all magistrates whose political principles were adverse 
 to his own, substituting for them the men that could be found 
 most noted for their love of passive obedience, and their 
 hatred of religious toleration. By the same rule did he uni- 
 versally appoint Sheriffs, by whom juries were to be returned, 
 — except the Sheriffs for London and Middlesex, who by ancient 
 charters, held sacred through a long succession of ages, were 
 elected by popular choice. In violation of these charters, he 
 procured the nomination of men who were the mere tools of 
 the Government to be Sheriffs for London and Middlesex ; — he 
 instituted arbitrary proceedings in the Court of King's Bench 
 to have those charters cancelled ; — and he unblushingly re- 
 moved and appointed Judges in this Court, that, contrary to 
 the established law of the land, his purpose might be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 But he has not to answer for the blood of Eussell and of 
 Sydney, as he was removed from this mortal scene before the 
 worst atrocities of the reign of Charles II. were completed. 
 He had long suffered from the gout ; and his attacks from that 
 disorder had become so frequent and severe, that he was for 
 months together prevented from attending the House of Lords, 
 the Court of Chancery, or the Council. Chief Justice North 
 used to sit for him frequently as Speaker of. the House of 
 Lords, and sometimes in the Court of Chancery, although his 
 love of his work there induced him to struggle to perform it 
 in person, when from bodily suffering he might well have 
 been excused for throwing it on others. "I have known 
 him," observes Eoger North, " sit to hear petitions in great 
 pain, and say that his servants had led him out, though he 
 was fitter for his chamber." 2 His frame becoming more and 
 more enfeebled, — soon after the flight of Shaftesbury to Hol- 
 land, and about a month before the death of his predecessor in 
 office and perpetual rival, Nottingham's career was for ever 
 closed. He expired on the 18th of December, 1682, at his 
 house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the 61st 
 year of his age. 
 
 His remains were interred in the parish church of Eaven- 
 
 1 Life of Lord Guilford, i. 49. His ab- ' Ask me no more why little Finch 
 
 sences from Parliament were occasionally From parliament began to winch ; 
 
 suspected to be from the apprehension of fmce such as dare to hawk at kings, 
 
 • 01 <•. u „ i „,.„ f ,. ~> With ease can clip a Finch s wings, 
 
 encountering Shaftesbury, as we learn irom r ° 
 
 a stanza in " a loyal song : *' — 
 
A.D. 1682. HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER. 267 
 
 stone in Buckinghamshire, where he had an estate "which had 
 belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and reverting to the Crown, had 
 been granted to Sir Movie Finch, the Chancellor's grand- 
 father. A splendid monument was erected to his memory by 
 his eldest son, which thus describes him : — 
 
 " A Person 
 
 Of extraordinary natural endowments, and for manly and unaffected eloquence, 
 
 Universal learning, uncorrup ted justice, and indefatigable diligence; 
 
 Most exemplary piety, large and diffusive charity, not unequal to any 
 
 That have gone before him, and an eminent example to posterity, 
 
 In whom all the virtues that make a great and good man 
 
 Were very conspicuous, without the blemish of any vice." a 
 
 It is impossible, with the slightest regard to justice, to con 
 cur in the unqualified praise bestowed upon him as a states- 
 man. Although he had no gratuitous love of despotic govern- 
 ment, yet his respect for the constitution was always ready to 
 give way to his own interest, and there were no measures, 
 however arbitrary, brought forward by the Court while he was 
 in office, that he did not zealously assist in executing and 
 defending. His wanton accusation against the Catholics in 
 pronouncing sentence upon Lord Stafford, " that they had 
 burnt the city of London and murdered Sir Edniondsbury God- 
 frey," I am afraid we must set down to a desire to acquire 
 popularity to the administration, — and he must have re- 
 gretted it in his heart, though he was rewarded for it with 
 an earldom. 
 
 In eveiy other point of view we are at liberty to regard 
 him with unmixed admiration. Considering how very few 
 individuals have distinguished themselves in the profession 
 of the law in England, who have not been urged by necessity 
 to the labour and the sacrifices which it demands, we must 
 honour the energy and steadfastness of purpose which enabled 
 him, the early possessor of large hereditary wealth, to devote 
 himself to the dry study of jurisprudence, and when he had 
 mastered it, to renounce the alluring pursuits which were 
 open to him, that he might attend to the business of his 
 clients in Westminster Hall. 
 
 When he had received the Great Seal, he had not yet 
 reached the summit of his ambition, — which was to acquire 
 the reputation (hardly aimed at by his predecessors) of being 
 a consummate Equity Judge, and of reducing "Equity" as 
 
 a His origin, offices, and alliances are de- florid. I am indebted for a copy of this to 
 tailed at great length. The monument like- the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Godfrey, the 
 wise contains a Latin inscription still more present Vicar of Ravenstone. 
 
268 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIII. 
 
 contradistinguished from the common law of England into a 
 scientific system. I have already tried to describe the noble 
 efforts which he made for that purpose.* 
 
 Unfortunately, the brilliancy of his success is impaired to us 
 by the imperfect record of it. His name as a Judge has not 
 utterly perished from the entire want of Eeporters ; but the 
 printed accounts of his decisions are wretchedly bad. Much 
 inconvenience does arise from the multiplicity and copiousness 
 of Reports in modern times ; but we ought to recollect the 
 great advantage we derive from full and accurate statements 
 of all that passes in our courts of justice, — whereby Judges, 
 speaking to the nation, are constantly on their good be- 
 haviour, and while what is trivial soon sinks from notice, 
 that which is important is imperishably preserved. The art 
 of Equity-reporting, though still capable of improvement, has 
 advanced exceedingly, and the worst Equity Eeports now are 
 better than the best of the reign of Charles II. 
 
 For what Lord Nottingham did and said in the Court of 
 Chancery, we have chiefly to trust to a folio published in 
 1725, entitled " Eeports Tempore Finch," — being a selection 
 of cases decided by him from 1673 to 1680, in which the Re- 
 porter himself was counsel ; — but they are miserably executed, 
 containing a defective narrative of the facts, — hardly any 
 statement of the points made by the counsel or the authorities 
 relied on, — and, without the reasons of the Judge, giving only 
 an abstract of the Decree, with the introductory words, — 
 "The Court ordered," or "The Court directed," or "The 
 Court allowed." We have next an anonymous octavo volume, 
 dated 1694, and entitled "Eeports of Cases taken and ad- 
 judged in the Court of Chancery, from the 20th of Charles II. 
 to the 1st of William and Mary," containing a number of cases 
 by Lord Nottingham, not given in a style more satisfactory. 
 Then there is a black-letter folio, published in 1697, under 
 the name of " Cases argued and decreed in the High Court of 
 Chancery from the 12th of Charles II. to the 31st, compiled 
 from the Papers of Sir Anthony Keck," — if possible still worse 
 than the preceding. 
 
 t> He issued several orders for regu- oath, got others to personate them, and pro- 
 
 lating the practice of the Court which were vides that when Quakers are to put in an- 
 
 generally of a very beneficial nature, but one swers to bills, or to be examined on inter- 
 
 of them, I am afraid, was prompted by the rogatories, two previous days' notice shall be 
 
 prevailing desire to vilify and to persecute given, so that tl.e plaintiff or his solicitor 
 
 Quakers. It recites that Quakers, when re- may attend to see them duly sworn. — Sand. 
 
 quired to answer bills and interrogatories on Ord. I. 348. 
 
Chap. XCIII. HIS JUDGMENTS. 269 
 
 There are a few decisions of Lord Nottingham, of little value, 
 to be found in " Reports in Chancery," in " Modern Reports," 
 in «• Dickens," in " Vernon," in " Kelson," and in " Freeman ;" 
 hut till the recent labours of Mr. Swanston the public had no 
 better means of forming an opinion of his judicial powers. 
 That gentleman, who so ably reported the later decisions of 
 Lord Eldon, has published in the Appendix to his second and 
 third volumes, from the folio MS. volume of Lord Notting- 
 ham's judgments in his own handwriting, a number of very 
 important and interesting cases, which strikingly exhibit the 
 characteristics of his judicial style and manner. 
 
 It will not be found (as might have been expected from 
 eonie of the panegyrics upon him) that Lord Nottingham 
 was much distinguished from his predecessors by the nature 
 or extent of the particular equitable doctrines which he 
 established. His great merit lay in the scientific method 
 which he pursued. Instead of disposing of a case with a few 
 random observations, like a Chairman at Quarter Sessions, we 
 find his written judgments methodical, and logical even to 
 form, ill -in, reminding one of the resolution of cases of con- 
 science by the schoolmen. His great object continued to be to 
 redeem Equity from the disgrace of being supposed to depend 
 upon the individual opinion or caprice of the Lord Chancellor. 
 With this view he put a strict limit to implied trusts, by 
 which every thing might be brought within the jurisdiction 
 of the Court. " A general rule," said he, " to which there is 
 no exception, is this : the law never implies, the Court never 
 presumes a trust, but in case of absolute necessity. The 
 reason of this rule is sacred ; for, if the Chancery do once 
 take liberty to construe a trust by implication of law, or to 
 presume a trust unnecessarily, a way is opened to the Loid 
 Chancellor to construe or presume any man in England out of 
 his estate ; and so at last every case in Court will become casus 
 pro amico." c 
 
 Another admirable rule guided him, — never, in the absence 
 of fraud, to interfere with contracts, or with obligations so- 
 lemnly contracted. " If a man," said he, " will improvidently 
 bind himself up by a voluntary deed, and not reserve a liberty 
 to himself by a power of revocation, this Court will not loose 
 the fetters he hath put upon himself, but he must lie down 
 under his own folly." d 
 
 Bishop Burnet concludes his Life of Hale with a charactei 
 
 • Cook v. Fountain, 3 Swanst. 592. d Villar6 v. Beaumont, 1 Vera. 101. 
 
270 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIII 
 
 of that great Judge, " furnished to him by one of the greatest 
 men of the profession of the law," who was no other than 
 Lord Nottingham, and who, after mentioning that Sir Matthew 
 was frequently called into the Court of Chancery to advise the 
 Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, says, — " He looked upon 
 Equity as a part of the common law, and one of the grounds 
 of it ; and, therefore, as near as he could, he did always reduce 
 it to certain rules and principles, that men might study it as a 
 science, and not think the administration of it had any thing 
 arbitrary in it." There Lord Nottingham may be considered 
 as having drawn his own portrait, and to have revealed the 
 secret of his own pre-eminence. 6 
 
 Eoger North blames him. for too much facility in hearing 
 counsel ; but, I believe, he only showed the desire, which is 
 most shown by Judges who least want it, to have the best 
 assistance of the bar in coming to a right conclusion. It is 
 related that Mr. Somers, afterwards the great Lord Chancellor, 
 when a very young man, rising after five or six seniors, 
 said, " that he was of the' same side, but that so much had 
 been already said, he had no room to add any thing, and 
 therefore he would not take up his Lordship's time by re- 
 peating what had been so well urged by the gentlemen who 
 went before him." "Sir," said Lord Nottingham, "pray go 
 on. I sit in this place to hear every body. You never repeat, 
 nor will you take up my time, and therefore I shall listen to 
 you with pleasure." 
 
 His most important decision, while he held the Great Seal, 
 probably was, that the obligation on constituencies to pay 
 wages to their representatives in the House of Commons, still 
 continues. After the dissolution of parliament, in 1681, 
 Thomas King, Esq., late member for Harwich, presented a 
 petition, stating "that he had served as burgesse in parlia- 
 ment for the said borrough severall yeares, and did give his 
 constant attendance therein; but that the said borrough had 
 not paid him his wages, though often requested so to do." 
 Notice being given to the corporation of Harwich, and the 
 facts being verified, the Lord Chancellor ordered the writ to 
 issue De expends burgensium levandisj 
 
 e See Preface to Hale's P. C. by Evelyn, for Hull, but I believe he only received from 
 
 vii., n. h. his constituents yearly a complimentary cask 
 
 f Reg. Lib. a. 1679, p. 215. I believe that of herrings. I know no reason, in point of 
 
 this is the last order made for payment of law, why any member may not now insist ou 
 
 wages. Some say that Andrew Marvel) was payment of his wages, or, if he never means 
 
 regularly paid his wages as long as he served to stand again for the same or any other 
 
Chm XCIII. AUTHOR OF THE "STATUTE OF FRAUDS.' 271 
 
 It is now ascertained that Lord Nottingham was the author 
 of the most important and most beneficial piece of juridical 
 legislation of which we can boast, — the famous " Statute of 
 Frauds," g the glory of which was long divided between Lord 
 Hale and Sir Leoline Jenkins. In his judgment in the case of 
 Ash v. Abdy, lately published from his MS. by Mr. Swanston, — 
 commenting on the Statute of Frauds, he says, " I have some 
 reason to know the meaning of this law ; for it had its first 
 rise from me, who brought in the bill into the Lords' House, 
 though it afterwards received some additions and improve- 
 ments from the Judges and the civilians." h 
 
 He never aspired to authorship beyond the printing of a few 
 of his speeches as pamphlets soon after they were spoken,— in 
 imitation of Shaftesbury, — looking more to the temporary im- 
 pression he might make on public opinion than to permanent 
 reputation. The manuscript reports of his judgments he 
 wrote merely that he might be better enabled to perform his 
 judicial duties. He inserts in his collection a few notes in the 
 form of a journal, but without any thought of appearing to 
 posterity as an autobiographer. His different treatises on 
 juridical and constitutional subjects he composed entirely for 
 his own use, without any view to publication, either during 
 his life or after his death. That " On the King's Power of 
 granting Pardons in Cases of Impeachment," written while 
 proceedings were depending against Lord Danby, was pub- 
 lished by Mr. Hargrave, in the year 1791, from a MS. in Lord 
 Lansdowne's library, as it was supposed to throw light on 
 gome of the questions agitated during the impeachment of Mr. 
 Hastings. He appears to have written well for one accustomed 
 to pore over the musty folios which then formed the lawyer's 
 library, and which were more immethodical in their arrange- 
 ment, and more barbarous in their diction, as they were more 
 recent ; but he is at an immeasurable distance from the ease 
 and elegance which now characterised the prose of Sir William 
 Temple and of Dryden. 1 
 
 place, why, in point of prudence, he may not Leoline Jenkins may have been two of the 
 
 insist on his rights. In most cases the pro- Judges and civilians who assisted in improv- 
 
 ceeding would be what in the law of Scotland ing it.— See Gilb. Rep. in Eq. 171. North's 
 
 is called "an action of repetition," -to recover Life of Guilford, i. 209. 1 Burr. 418. 5 East, 
 
 back money wrongously received. For this 17. If Lord Nottingham drew it, he was the 
 
 point of the People's Charter — payment of less qualified to construe it, the author of an 
 
 vages — no new law is required. act considering more what he privately in- 
 
 8 29 Charles 2, c. 3. tended, than the meaning he has expressed. 
 
 <> 3 Swanston, 664. Lord Hale sod J have recently been much struck fcy an 
 
272 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCI1L 
 
 He was a great patron of learning. Bishop Burnet, in the 
 preface to the History of the Reformation, pays the following 
 compliment to his liberality and kindness: — "The Eight 
 Honourable the Lord Finch, now Lord High Chancellor ot 
 England, whose great parts and greater virtues are so conspi- 
 cuous, that it were a high presumption in me to say any thing 
 in his commendation, being in nothing more eminent than in 
 his zeal for and care of this Church, thought it must be of some 
 importance to have its history well digested ; and therefore, 
 as he bore a large share of my expense, so he took it more particu- 
 larly under his care ; and, under all the burdens of that high 
 employment which he now bears, jet found time for reading it in 
 manuscript, of which he must have robbed himself, since he 
 never denies it to those who have a right to it on any public 
 account, and hath added such remarks and corrections as are no small 
 part of any finishing it may be judged to have" k 
 
 A still more striking tribute to his protection of men distin- 
 guished for their literary acquirements we have in a letter 
 from the famous Bishop Warburton to the grand-daughter of 
 Lord Nottingham, who was married to the first Lord Mansfield, 
 the celebrated Chief Justice of the King's Bench : — 
 
 " Madam, — You ought not to think strange of an address cf this kind 
 from a churchman to the grand-daughter of that great magistrate, who, 
 while he held the Seals for the King and constitution, besides the most 
 exemplary attention to the proper business of his office, was elegantly 
 ambitious to give the last polish to his country by a patronage of 
 learning and science. 
 
 " He took early into his notice, and continued long in his protection, 
 every great name in letters and religion, from Cudworth, who died in 
 the reign of Charles II., to Prideaux, who lived under George I. It 
 was the care and culture of an age, and, in spite of a dissolute and 
 abandoned Court, he made the reign of Charles II. to be what it is now 
 likely to be always esteemed, — our golden age of literature. The glory 
 of bearing this relation to so faithful a guardian of the human faculties 
 in their nonage, Providence, in reward of your virtues, hath doubled in 
 a still nearer relation to one who, in his high station, may, with the 
 same justice, be esteemed the great support of civil liberty, and is now 
 engaged in the like generous task for the very being of a free com- 
 munity, which the other so successfully accomplished for that chief 
 ornament of it, literature and science. 
 
 " But the honours you derive from others you preserve untarnished 
 
 admirable paper written by Lord Notting- power of the Lords to alter a money bUl 
 bam, justifying the privileges of the Com- 3 Hatsell, p. 371. — Note to ±th Ed. 
 nions in granting supplies — and denying the k Pref. tr Jnd Part, p. iv. 
 
Chap. XCIII. LAUDABLE EXERCISE OF CHURCH PATRONAGE. 273 
 
 by the splendour of those you have acquired for yourself in the courso 
 of a sober and enlightened piety, which makes you an example to the 
 rest cf your sex, as the patriotic virtues of your illustrious consort will 
 make him to the wisest of his." m 
 
 Lord Nottingham was particularly praised by his contem- 
 poraries, for the conscientious impartiality with which he dis- 
 posed of the church, preferment in his gift as Chancellor. His 
 anxiety on this subject is feelingly expressed in a letter to his 
 chaplain, Dr. Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York, w r hom he 
 considered more competent than himself to exercise the duty 
 of judicious selection: "The greatest difficulty I apprehend 
 in my office, is the patronage of ecclesiastical preferments. 
 God is my witness that I would not knowingly prefer an 
 unworthy person ; but as my course of life and studies ha& 
 lain another way, I cannot think myself so good a judge of the 
 merits of such suitors as you are. I therefore charge it upon 
 your conscience as you will answer it to Almighty God, that 
 upon every such occasion you make the best inquiry and give 
 me the best advice you can, that I may never bestow any 
 favour upon an undeserving man ; which if you neglect to 
 do, the guilt will be entirely yours, and I shall save my own 
 soul." 
 
 He was most strictly decent and moral in private life, — 
 setting an example peculiarly useful and praiseworthy, when 
 we consider that, to show a hatred of puritanism, and to 
 gain favour at Court, it w T as thought necessaiy to assume vices 
 if men had them not, and that his predecessor having bandied 
 compliments with the Sovereign on their rival claims to profli- 
 gacy, his successor was strongly and seriously advised, if he 
 would retain his office, openly to keep » mistress. 
 
 Lord Nottingham had the misfortune to lose his wife after 
 she had brought him fourteen children, and he continued for 
 the rest of his days as a widower affectionately to cherish her 
 memory. 
 
 It is related of him, that he comforted himself by taking the 
 Great Seal to bed writh him, and that thus on the 7th of 
 February, 11 1677, he saved it from the fate which then befell 
 the mace, and afterwards the Great Seal itself, in the time of 
 Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who had not treated it so tenderly. 
 "About one in the morning," says Wood, " the Lord Chancellor 
 Finch his mace was stole out of his house in Queen Street. 
 
 m Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ix. p. 626. Additions to the fifth vol. : " Warburton." 
 
 n A. Wood's Life, ii. 264. 
 VOL. IV. T 
 
274 LORD CHAIsCEi.LOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIIi. 
 
 The Seal laid under his pillow, so the thief missed it. The 
 famous thief that did it was Thomas Sadler, soon after taken 
 and hanged for it at Tyburn." ° 
 
 He was much applauded for the dignity with which he 
 kept up the state of his high office. Besides his town-house, 
 in which he gave sumptuous banquets to all classes of men, 
 he had a villa at Kensington, to which he could retire with a 
 few chosen friends, and enjoy fresh air and repose amidst the 
 gardens and meadows which surrounded it. p He was so 
 wealthy, that after he had held the Great Seal a few years 
 he gave up to the King the allowance of 4000/. a year as- 
 signed to him for the expense of his tables, and he never 
 solicited any grant of land, or bargained for any pension upon 
 his retirement. 
 
 He seems to have been fanciful about his health, and to 
 have been a believer not only in the occult powers of medicine, 
 but in astrology. In the Diary of the famous Elias Ashmole, 
 under date 23rd October, 1682, we find this entry: "My Lord 
 Chancellor Finch sent for me to cure him of his rheumatism. 
 I dined there, but would not undertake the cure." On calcu- 
 lating the Lord Chancellor's nativity, I presume it was ascer- 
 tained that the aspect of the stars was unfavourable. If he 
 joined Dryden in such vagaries, need we be much astonished 
 when we find grave characters believing in clairvoyance at 
 the present day ? 
 
 Instead of attempting any general character of him myself, 
 I shall conclude with some conflicting observations made 
 upon him by others, which may better assist the reader to ap- 
 preciate his merits and defects. " He was a formalist," says 
 Eoger North, " and took pleasure in hearing and deciding, 
 and gave way to all kinds of motions the counsel would offer ; 
 supposing, that if he split the hairs, and with his gold scales 
 determined reasonably on one side of the motion, justice was 
 nicely done. Not imagining what torment the people en- 
 dured, who were torn from the law and there (in Equity) 
 tossed in a blanket." q 
 
 " He was a man of probity," says Bishop Burnet of his 
 patron, reposing at Ravenstone, " and well versed in the 
 laws ; but very ill-bred, vain, and haughty. He was long 
 
 Ath. Os.. thought that smothering between two feather 
 
 P On the site of this stands the royal palace beds, — or starving to death in a dungeon. — 
 
 of William III.— an enlargement of Lord would have been a better illustration of the 
 
 Nottingham's house. fate of a Chancery victim, 
 i Lif? of Guilford, ii. 74. I should have 
 
Chap. XCIII. CENSURED BY BURNET— PRAISED BY WHARTON. 275 
 
 much admired for his eloquence ; but it was laboured and 
 affected, and he saw it as much despised before he died. 
 He had no sort of knowledge in foreign affairs, and yet ht 
 loved to talk of them perpetually ; by which he exposed 
 himself to those who understood them. He thought he was 
 bound to justify the Court in all debates in the House ot 
 Lords, which he did with the vehemence of a pleader rather 
 than with the solemnity of a senator. He was an incorrupt 
 Judge, and in his Court he could resist the strongest applica- 
 tions, even from the King himself, though he did it no where 
 else. He was too eloquent : on the bench, in the House of 
 Lords, and even iri common conversation, that eloquence be- 
 came in him ridiculous." r 
 
 Duke Wharton, out of spite to Shaftesbury, bestows upon Not- 
 tingham unmixed commendation. — " He had no pimps, poets, 
 and buffoons to administer to pleasure or flattery. His train 
 was made up of gentlemen of figure, men of estates, barristers 
 at law, and such as had a reputation in the profession, and were 
 suitable and becoming so high a station. His decrees were 
 pronounced with the greatest solemnity and gravity ; no man's 
 ever were in higher esteem, had more weight, or carry greater 
 authority at this very day than his do. He was a great re- 
 finer, but never made use of nice distinctions to prejudice 
 truth, or colour over what deserves the worst of names. He 
 frequently declared he sat there to do justice, and as long 
 as his Majesty was pleased to continue him on that seat, 
 he would do it by the help of God impartially to all, — to 
 the officer as well as the suitor. If the officer exceeded his 
 just fees, or played tricks with the client, he would fine or 
 punish him severely ; at the same time, the trouble and at- 
 tendance of the officer (he thought) justly entitled him to 
 his fees. His reprimands were mixed with sweetness and 
 severity, and so pointed as to correct, not confound the coun- 
 sel. He was, indeed, difficult of access ; but when once you 
 had admittance, you found nothing from him but what was 
 fair, just, and honourable ; so that he had the happiness to 
 send most people away with pleasure and satisfaction. His 
 morals were as chaste as his writings, and they who have 
 pretended to criticise the one, could never find the least fault 
 with the other. His conversation was always with the great- 
 est deference to decency and good manners. He was ever on 
 his guard to parry the thrusts of witty courtiers and men of 
 
 r Own Times, vol. ii 28—137. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIIL 
 
 pleasantry. To figure this great and inestimable man aright, 
 and to paint him in his true colours, and with some warmth 
 of imagination, but still with the greatest submission to strict 
 justice, I would seat him on his throne with a ray of glory 
 about his head, his ermines without spot or blemish, his ba- 
 lance in his right hand, mercy on his left, splendour and 
 brightness at his feet, and his tongue dispensing truth, good- 
 ness, virtue, and justice to mankind." 8 
 
 From the author of the interesting Life of Bishop Bull we 
 have the following warm testimony to the merits of Lord 
 Nottingham : — " His Lordship was justly esteemed the great 
 oracle of the law in his time, and so perfect a master in the 
 art of speaking, that he passed for the English Cicero. Yet 
 his great understanding, his eloquent tongue, and his titles of 
 honour, did not give his name so lasting a lustre as that piety 
 and virtue wherewith he adorned his high station, which is 
 but too often starved in so rich a soil, and thriveth best in 
 a private life." ' 
 
 He is again favourably contrasted with Shaftesbury in the 
 second part of " Absalom and Achitophel : " — 
 
 " Sincere was Amri, and not only knew, 
 
 But Israel's sanctions into practice drew ; 
 
 Our laws that did a boundless ocean seem, 
 Were coasted all and fathom'd all by him. 
 No Rabbin speaks like him their mystic sense, 
 So just, and with such charms of eloquence ; 
 
 To whom the double blessing does belong, 
 With Moses' inspiration, Aaron's tongue." 
 
 All juridical writers, both in this country and in America, 
 worship him as the first of lawyers. Blackstone in his en- 
 thusiasm having described him as "the zealous defender of 
 the laws and constitution," goes on truly to say he was 
 " endued with a pervading genius that enabled him to dis- 
 cover and to pursue the true spirit of justice, notwithstanding 
 the embarrassments raised by the narrow and technical no- 
 tions which then prevailed in the Courts of Law, and the 
 imperfect ideas of redress which had possessed the Courts 
 of Equity. The reason and necessities of mankind arising 
 from the great change in property by the extension of trade, 
 and the abolition of military tenures, co-operated in establish- 
 ing his plan, and enabled him, in the course of nine years, to 
 build a system of jurisprudence and jurisdiction upon wide 
 and rational foundations." u 
 
 • True Briton, No. 69. * Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, 277, 278. » 3 Bl. Cora 5«. 
 
fc?HAP. XCIII. HIS DESCENDANTS. 277 
 
 The Great Chancellor Kent, after repeating this eulogy 
 on Lord Nottingham, adds, " We have but few reports of 
 his decisions that are worthy of his fame. They are diffused 
 through several works of inferior authority. It is from his 
 time, however, that Equity became a regular and cultivated 
 science, and the judicial decisions in Chancery are to be care- 
 fully studied." x 
 
 Finally, Professor Story, who has treated this subject more 
 systematically than any English jurist, in giving a history of 
 Equity, observes, " With Lord Nottingham a new era com- 
 menced. He was a person of eminent abilities and the most 
 incorruptible integrity. He possessed a fine genius and 
 great liberality of views, and a thorough comprehension of 
 the true principles of Equity, so that he was enabled to 
 expand the remedial justice of the Court far beyond the 
 aims of his predecessors. He built up a system which served 
 as a model for succeeding judges to the Court ; and hence he 
 has been emphatically called the Father of Equity." r 
 
 His descendants were most distinguished members of the 
 peerage of England. Daniel, his eldest son, not only suc- 
 ceeded to his titles, but, on the failure of the older branch of 
 the Finch family, to the earldom of YYinchilsea, and they are 
 all now enjoyed by his lineal representative, the present Earl 
 of Winchilsea and Nottingham. 
 
 The Chancellor's second son, Heneage, was bred to the 
 law, and almost rivalled his father in the brilliancy and suc- 
 cess of his professional career. An innate gift of eloquence 
 was held at that time to be an hereditary talent in the blood 
 of Finch. North, in his discourse on the study of the law, 
 where he is expatiating on the necessity of a lawyer's en- 
 deavouring to acquire volubility of talk, after quoting the 
 well-known saying of Serjeant Maynard, that the law is 
 " ars bablativa," adds, " that all the learning in the world 
 will not set a man up in bar practice without the faculty of a 
 ready utterance, and that is acquired by habit only, unless 
 there be a natural felicity of speech, such as the family of the 
 Finches is eminent by." This displayed itself conspicuously in 
 young Heneage, who was called " silver-tongued Finch," and 
 with general approbation was appointed Solicitor-General 
 while his father held the Great Seal. From this post 
 he was removed soon after the accession of James II. 
 for his opposition to the arbitrary measures of the Court. He 
 
 ■ KerM's Com. 491. f Story's Equity, I 46. 
 
278 LORD CHANCELLOR NOTTINGHAM. Chap. XCIII. 
 
 then joined the Whig party, was one of the principal counsel 
 for the seven Bishops, and assisted in bringing in King AYil- 
 liam. Early in the reign of Queen Anne he was called to 
 the Upper House as Baron Guernsey, and on the accession of 
 George I. he was created Earl of Aylesford, the title now 
 borne by his great-great-grandson. He completed the list of 
 the eminent men who have made the name of Finch so con- 
 spicuous in our legal annals. 
 
 Although Charles II. survived Lord Chancellor Notting- 
 ham above two years, — as he never called another parliament, 
 this may be the most convenient opportunity for taking a short 
 review of the changes introduced into the law while he was 
 upon the throne. Blackstone goes so far as to say, that " not- 
 withstanding much practical oppression in this reign, wicked, 
 sanguinary, and turbulent as it was, the constitution of Eng- 
 land had arrived to its full vigour, and the true balance be- 
 tween liberty and prerogative was happily established by 
 law." ■ Certainly great benefits were conferred upon the 
 public by converting military tenures into common soccage, 
 — by entirely sweeping away purveyance and pre-emption, — 
 by abolishing the writ " De hceretico' comburendo" * which 
 might otherwise now have been called into action against 
 Unitarians and other dissenters, — by " the Statute of Dis- 
 tributions," b which makes a most equitable disposition of 
 personal property in case of intestacy; — by "the Statute 
 of Frauds," admirably regulating the forms of entering into 
 contracts and making wills ; c — and above all, " the Habeas 
 Corpus Act," the safeguard under which personal liberty has 
 continued to be protected in England to a degree elsewhere 
 unknown. Among the juridical improvements of the reign 
 must likewise be enumerated the practical settlement of cer- 
 tain important constitutional doctrines, such as that the Peers 
 have no original civil jurisdiction, but that they have an ap- 
 pellate jurisdiction from Courts of Equity as well as from 
 Courts of Law ; d that the King's pardon cannot be pleaded in 
 bar of a parliamentary impeachment ; and that no commoner 
 can be tried for his life except before his own peers, — an 
 
 1 4 Bl. Cora. 439. a 29 Car. 2, c. 9. subsidy."— R. North's life of Gmtfard. t 
 
 t> 22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 10. 209. 
 
 c 29 Car. 2, c. 3- Lord Nottingham used d Hale* s. Jurisdiction of the House of lord* 
 
 to gay, " that every line of it was worth a by Hargrave, ex. clxv. clxxix. 
 
Chap. XCIII. LEGISLATION IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 279 
 
 English jury. But, I believe, regret is now generally felt 
 that some of the clauses of "the Act of Uniformity " aie so 
 rigorous and exclusive, and that " the Conventicle Act" and 
 "the Five Mile Act" ever passed. I must likewise be per- 
 mitted to deplore the passing of "the Test and Corporation 
 Acts," and " the Act for excluding Eoman Catholics from 
 sitting in Parliament," which have at last been repealed 
 in our own time. Nor do I understand Blackstone's al- 
 leged theoretical perfection of the constitution at a time 
 when the Judges might lawfully be removed on any occasion 
 at the will of the Crown, — when there was no security for 
 the meeting of parliament, — and when his own constitutional 
 oracle, Lord Chancellor Nottingham, laid down, ex cathedra, 
 that the King of England has a light to dispense with all laws. 
 At the commencement of the reign, the laudable eagerness 
 for rational legal reform which had distinguished the Com- 
 monwealth still prevailed, and a Committee was appointed 
 by the House of Commons, " to confer with such of the 
 Lords, the Judges, and other persons of the long robe, who 
 have already taken pains and made progress in perusing 
 the statute laws, and to consider of repealing such foimer 
 statute laws as they shall find necessary to be repealed, and 
 of expedients of reducing all statute laws of one nature 
 under such a method and head as may conduce to the more 
 ready understanding and better execution of such laws." e 
 The Solicitor-General Finch, Serjeant Maynard, Prynne, and 
 many other eminent law}^ers, were members of the Com- 
 mittee ; but the codification of the statute law is still re- 
 served for the glory of the present or some future govern- 
 ment. Lender Charles II. political faction and religious 
 controversy soon absorbed all attention and interest ; and 
 nothing effectual was done to correct the abuses prevailing 
 either in the Courts of Law or Equity, so that the satire of 
 the poet met with a response from the public voice, when 
 he sang : — ■ 
 
 " He that with injury is grieved When all he can expect to gain 
 
 And goes to law to be relieved, . Id but to squander more in vain. — 
 
 Is sillier than a sottish chouse, Does not in Chancery ev'ry man swear 
 
 Who, when a thief has robb'd his house. What makes best for him in his answer? 
 
 Applies himself to cunning mem And while their purses can dispute, 
 
 To help him to his goods again ; There is no end of th' immortal suit." '■ 
 
 Com. Journ. viii. 631 f Hudibras, par' Hi cant 
 
280 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Cha*>. XCIV 
 
 CHAPTER XCIV. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD KEEPER GUILFORD FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HE WAS 
 APPOINTED SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 
 
 We now come to one of the most contemptible men who ever 
 held the Great Seal of England. He had not conrage to com- 
 mit great crimes ; but — selfish, cunning, sneaking, and un- 
 principled, — his only restraint was a regard to his own per- 
 sonal safety, and throughout his whole life he sought and 
 obtained advancement by the meanest arts. Nottingham was 
 succeeded by Francis North, known by the title of " Lord 
 Keeper Guilford." 
 
 Our hero, although he himself ascribed his success to his 
 poverty, was of noble birth. The founder of his family was 
 Edward North, a Serjeant at law, Chancellor of the Augmen- 
 tations, and created a Baron by writ in the reign of Henry 
 VIII. g Dudley, the third Baron, " having consumed the 
 greatest part of his estate in the gallantries of King James's 
 court, or rather his son Prince Henry's," retired and spent 
 the rest of his days at his seat in Cambridgeshire. When the 
 civil war broke out, he sided with the parliament, and en rare 
 occasions coming to London he is said to have sat on the trial 
 of Laud, and to have voted for his death. Having reached 
 extreme old age, he died in the year 1666. h 
 
 Dudley, his heir, who, at the age of sixty-three, stood on the 
 steps of the throne in the House of Lords as " the eldest son of 
 a Peer," was a great traveller in his youth, and served with 
 distinction in the Low Countries under Sir Francis Vere. Yet 
 he never would put on his hat nor sit down in the presence 
 of his father, unless by the old Peer's express commands. 
 Being returned to the Long Parliament for the county of Cam- 
 bridge, he strenuously opposed the Court, and signed the 
 solemn League and Covenant ; but, adhering to the Presby- 
 terian party, he was turned out by Pride s purge, ' and lived in 
 retirement till the Eestoration. He married Anne, one of 
 the daughters and coheirs of Sir Charles Montagu, brother 
 
 5 April 5 1554. h Grandeur of Law. Collins. i 2 Pari. Hist. 600 
 
A D. 1637-55. HIS BIKTH AND EDUCATION. 281 
 
 of the Earl of Manchester, by whom he had a very isunerous 
 family. 
 
 The subject of this memoir was their second som and was 
 born on the 22nd of October, 1637. k Though he turned out 
 such a zealous royalist and high churchman, it is curious to 
 think that his early training began among republicans and 
 fanatics. As soon as he left the nursery, he was sent to a pre- 
 paratory school at Isle worth, the master of which was a rigid 
 Presbyterian. His wife was a furious Independent, and she 
 ruled the household. " She used to instruct her babes in the 
 gift of praying by the Spirit, and all the scholars were made 
 to kneel by a bedside and pray ; but this petit spark was too 
 small for that posture, and was set upon the bed to kneel, 
 with his face to a pillow. She then led off their devotions, 
 as one specially inspired ; but all that North could distinctly 
 recollect of them was, that he prayed for his distressed brethren in 
 Ireland."™ 
 
 His family becoming disgusted with the extravagance of the 
 ruling powers, and beginning to look to royalty as the 
 only cure for the evils the nation was suffering, he 
 was removed from Isle worth, and put to a grammar school at 
 Bury St. Edmunds, under a cavalier master. Here principles 
 of loyalty were secretly instilled into him ; and as a proof 
 of h:'s proficiency in the Latin tongue, he made out a list of 
 all the verbs neuter, which was printed in an appendix to 
 Lilly's Grammar. 
 
 In 1653 he was admitted a fellow commoner at St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. He is said to have remained there two 
 or three years, applying diligently to the studies of the place ; 
 but he seems to have devoted much of his time to the bass- 
 viol, and he left the L T niversity without a degree. 
 
 He was then transferred to the Middle Temple. When he 
 was entered, the treasurer was Chaloner Chute, the a.d. i6S5— 
 eminent counsel, famous for having been the Speaker 166 °- 
 of one of Cromwell's parliaments, and more famous among 
 lawyers for his habit, when he wished to pass a few months in 
 pleasure after his own humour, of saying to his clerk, — " Tell 
 the people I will not practise this term," — being able, when 
 he pleased, to resume his business, which was nothing shrunk 
 
 k Roger North, his biographer, does not tion on his tombstone in the par.sh church oi 
 
 mention the time of his birth, and it has been Wrox ton, near Banbury, in Oxf: rdshire 
 
 generally laid in the year 1640; but I have m North's Life of Guilford, i. 11 
 clearly ascertained this date by an inscrip- 
 
282 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCIV 
 
 ny the discontinuance. The Treasurer, who was nearly con- 
 nected by marriage with the North family, having the pc wer 
 of fixing the admission fee, which was seldom less than five 
 pounds, asked Sir Dudley, the father, what he was willing to 
 give ; and he answering " Three pounds ten," and the mmey 
 being laid down, the Treasurer swept it all into the hat of 
 young Frank, marking the admission nil, and saying, — " Let 
 this be a beginning of your getting money here." n 
 
 His father bought him a very small set of chambers, in 
 which he shut himself up, and dedicated himself to the study 
 of the law. He early learned and often repeated this saying 
 of the citizens to their apprentices, — "Keep your shop, and 
 your shop will keep you." He did not frequent riding-schools, 
 or dancing-schools, or playhouses, or gaming-houses, — so 
 dangerous to youth at the Inns of Court. Though he could 
 " make one at gammon, gleek, piquet, or even the nierry-main, 
 he had ever a notable regard to his purse to keep that from 
 oversetting, like a vessel at sea that hath too much sail and too 
 little ballast." 
 
 While a student, he paid frequent and long visits to his 
 grandfather, who seems to have become a most singularly 
 tyrannical and capricious old man. Frank exerted himself to 
 the utmost to comply with all his humours, being allowed by 
 him 20?. a-year ; but lost his favour and his pension by con- 
 veying to him, at the request of Sir Dudley, the father, some 
 caution about the appointment of a steward. He had at last 
 a qualified pardon in a letter concluding with these words — ■ 
 " In consilium ne accesseris anteqvam voceris — do not offer your 
 advice before it is asked." He was always industrious, and 
 during these visits, though he could not altogether avoid 
 bowling, fishing, hunting, visiting, and billiards, he spent the 
 greater part of his time in reading and ccmmon -placing the 
 law books brought down to him by the carrier. 
 
 While in town, he always dined in the hall, — twelve at 
 noon being the hour of dinner, — and supped there again at six ; 
 — after which "case-putting" began in the cloister walks, 
 — and he acquired the character of a great "put-case." He 
 kept a common-place book, which seems to have been almost 
 as massive as " Brooke's Abridgment of the Law." He made 
 himself well acquainted with the Year Books, although not 
 altogether so passionately attached to them as Serjeant May- 
 
 n It appears by the books of the Middle Temple, that he was admitted Nov. 27, 1655 
 
 ■ Life, i. 11 
 
A.D. 1G55-60. HIS EARLY CAREER. 283 
 
 nard, who, when he was taking an airing in his coach, always 
 carried a volume of them along with him, which, he said, 
 amused him more than a comedy. He attended all famous 
 legal arguments, particularly those of Sir Heneage Finch, and 
 taking notes in the morning in law French, he employed him- 
 self most usefully at night in making out in English a report 
 of the cases he had heard. 
 
 By way of relaxation he would go to music meetings, or tc 
 hear Hugh Peters preach. Nothing places him in such an 
 amiable point of view as the delight he is said to have taken, 
 on rare occasions, in " a petit supper and a bottle," — when 
 there really seems to have been a short oblivion of anxiety 
 about his rise in the world ; but, to show his constitutional 
 caution, his brother Eoger assures us that, " whenever he was 
 a little overtaken, it was a warning to him to take better care 
 afterwards." 
 
 We are told that while he was a student he " underpulled " 
 or managed suits for his grandfather, father, and other friends 
 — an occupation which rather puzzles us — for it was not 
 merely superintending a solicitor who conducted them — but 
 he himself made out to his clients a bill of fees and disburse- 
 ments, in which his grandfather violently suspected that he 
 was guilty of great frauds. Yet a solicitor was employed, who 
 likewise made out a bill, on which he offered North a per- 
 centage, saying that " it was their way, and they were al- 
 lowed at the offices somewhat for encouragement to them that 
 brought business." p There are many things to show that the 
 administration of justice between party and party, as well as 
 between the crown and the subject, is much purer now than 
 in former times. 
 
 Long before he was called to the bar, "he undertook the 
 practice of court-keeping ;" that is, he was appointed the 
 steward of a great many manors by his grandfather and other 
 friends, and he did all the work in person, writing all his 
 court rolls, and making out his copies with his own hand. I 
 am afraid he now began his violation of the rights and liberties 
 of his fellow-subjects by practising some petty extortions 
 upon the bumpkins who came before him. "His grandfather," 
 says Eoger, with inimitable simplicity, " had a venerable old 
 steward, careful by nature and faithful to his Lord, em- 
 ploying all his thoughts and time to manage for supply of his 
 house and upholding his rents, — in short, one of a race of human hind 
 
 P Life, i. 36. 
 
284 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCIV. 
 
 heretofore frequent, but now utterly extinct, — affectionate as well as 
 faithful, and diligent rather for love than self-interest. This 
 old gentleman, with his boot-hose and beard, used to accom- 
 pany his young master to his court-keeping, and observing him 
 
 REASON THE COUNTRY PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR PENCE FOR ESSOLNES, 
 
 &c, he commended him, saying, ' If you will be contented, 
 Master Frank, to be a great while getting a little, you will be 
 a little while getting a great deal ; ' wherein he was no false 
 prophet." q 
 
 Having been the requisite time on the books of the society 
 June 28, of the Middle Temple, and performed all his moots 
 i66i. (upon which he bestowed great labour), Francis was 
 called to the bar, ex debito justitice. He might have been called 
 earlier, ex gratia ; but he wisely remembered Lord Coke's 
 warning against pr&propera praxis, as well as prazpostera lectio, 
 and he acted upon the maxim which still holds true, that " he 
 who is not a good lawyer before he comes to the bar, will 
 never be a good one after it." 
 
 The allowance of sixty pounds a-year which he had hitherto 
 received from his father was now reduced to fifty, in respect 
 of the pence he collected by court-keeping and the expected 
 profits of his practice. He highly disapproved of this reduc- 
 tion, and wrote many letters to his father to remonstrate against 
 it. At last he received an answer which he hoped was favour- 
 able, but which contained only these words : — " Frank, I sup- 
 pose by this time, having vented all your discontent, you are 
 satisfied with what I have done." The reduced allowance, 
 however, was continued to him as long as his father lived, who 
 said " he would not discourage industry by rewarding it when 
 successful with loss." 
 
 The young barrister was now hard put to it. He took " a 
 practising chamber " on a first floor in Elm Court, " a dismal 
 hole — dark next the Court, and on the other side a high build- 
 ing of the Inner Temple standing within five or six yards of 
 the windows." He was able to fill his shelves with all useful 
 books of the law from the produce of certain legacies and gifts 
 collected for him by his mother, and he seems still to have 
 had a small pecuniary help from his grandfather/ For some 
 time he had great difficulty in keeping free from debt ; but he 
 often declared that " if he had been sure of a hundred pounds 
 a-year to live upon, he had never been a lawyer." 
 
 •> Life, i. 33. were required. Now, unfortunately, a law 
 
 r At that time not more than fifty volumes library is *' multorum cameloruni onui." 
 
A.D. 1661. PATRONISED BY Sifi JEFFREY PALMER. 285 
 
 He is much praised by his brother, because it is said " he 
 did not (as seems to have been common), for the sake of 
 pushing himself, begin by bustling about town and obtruding 
 himself upon attorneys or bargaining for business, but was 
 contented if chance or a friend brought him a motion as he 
 was standing at the bar taking notes." These, however, came 
 so rarely that he fell into a very dejected and hypochon- 
 driacal state. Thinking himself dying, he carried a list of his 
 ailments to a celebrated physician, Dr. Beckenham of Bury, 
 who laughed at him and sent him away, prescribing fresh air 
 and amusement. 
 
 He was in danger of utterly sinking in the slough of de- 
 spond, when he was suddenly taken by the hand by the great 
 lawyer, Sir Jeffrey Palmer, wmo was made Attorney-General 
 on the restoration of Charles II., and who if he had lived 
 must have been Lord Chancellor. His son, Edward, a very 
 promising young man, lately called to the bar, died about this 
 time in the arms of Francis North, who had been at college 
 with him, and had shown him great attention during his illness. 
 
 All the business destined for young Palmer now somehow 
 found its way to his surviving friend. Patronage, recom- 
 mendation, and canvassing to push a young lawyer into 
 business, were not in those days deemed irregular. We are 
 told, without any suspicion of impropriety, that North was 
 now supported ' ' through the whole relation and dependence 
 of Sir Jeffrey," and that " his wmeel of good fortune turned 
 upon the favour of Mr. Attorney Palmer." This powerful 
 protector rapidly brought him forward by employing him in 
 government prosecutions, 8 and even w T hen he himself w-as 
 confined by illness, by giving him his briefs in smaller matters 
 to hold for him in Court. North, we may be sure, was most 
 devotedly assiduous in making a suitable return for this 
 kindness, and in flattering his patron. Instead of the sen- 
 timents he had imbibed from his family in his early days, he 
 now loudly expressed those of an ultra-prerogative lawyer, 
 exalting the power of the King both over the church and the 
 parliament. 
 
 Being considered a rising man, his private friends and near 
 relations came to consult him. He was once asked if he took 
 fees from them. "Yes," said he; "they, no doubt, come to 
 do me a kindness ; and what kindness have I if I refuse their 
 money ? " 
 
 8 6 St. Tr. 520, 540, 880. 
 
28G LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCIV. 
 
 Soon after he was called to the bar he went the Norfolk 
 a.d. 1662— circuit, where his family interest lay ; but here 
 i67i. again he chiefly relied upon his grand resource of 
 
 nattering his superiors, and accommodating himself to their 
 humours. " He was exceeding careful to keep fair with 
 the cocks of the circuit, and particularly with Serjeant Earl, 
 who had almost a monopoly. The Serjeant was a very co- 
 vetous man, and when none would starve with him in jour- 
 neys, this young gentleman kept him company." ' They 
 once rode together from Cambridge to Norwich without draw- 
 ing bit, to escape the expense of baiting at an inn, and 
 North would have been famished if the Serjeant's man, 
 knowing his master's habits, had not privately furnished 
 him with a cake. He asked the Serjeant, out of com- 
 pliment to his riches, how he kept his accounts, " for you 
 have," said he, " lands, securities, and great comings in of all 
 kinds." " Accounts, boy ! " exclaimed the Serjeant, " I get ae 
 much as I can, and I spend as little as I can ; and there is 
 all the account I keep." In these journeys the Serjeant 
 talked so agreeably of law, and tricks, and purchases, and 
 management, that North's hunger was beguiled, and he 
 thought only of the useful knowledge he was acquiring, and 
 the advantage to be derived from the countenance of a man so 
 looked up to. 
 
 In court he stood in great awe of the leaders, "for they 
 having the conduct of the cause, take it ill if a young man 
 blurts out any thing, though possibly to the purpose, because 
 it seems to top them." u Therefore he would not make him- 
 self too conspicuous, "and when he had a point he always 
 communicated it to his leader, who would sometimes desire 
 him to move it himself, and would be sure thereafter to try to 
 have his assistance." x 
 
 His business was increased on the circuit by his becoming 
 a Commissioner of the Bedford Level, by his rise to be Chief 
 Justice of Ely, and by his acting as Counsel for the Crown in 
 a grand Eyre to visit all the forests south of Trent. But 
 still nothing pleased him so much as to get on by personal 
 favour. 
 
 Lord Chief Justice Hyde generally rode the Norfolk circuit, 
 and so completely had North taken the measure of his foot, that 
 my Lord called him " Cousin " in open Court, "which was a 
 declaration that he would take it for a respect to himself to 
 
 1 Life, i. 69. u Ibid. i. 70. * Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1662-71. HIS MANAGEMENT OF THE JUDGES. . 287 
 
 bring him causes." The biographer to whom we are so nmch 
 indebted lays it down that there is no harm in a J udge letting 
 it be known " that a particular counsel will be easily heard 
 before him, and that his errors and lapses, when they happen, 
 will not offend his Lordship or hurt the cause, beyond which 
 the profession of favour is censurable both to judge and coun- 
 sel." The morality of the bar in those days will be better 
 understood by the following observations of simple Koger. 
 " In circuit practice there is need of an exquisite knowledge of 
 the Judge's humour, as well as his learning and ability to try 
 causes ; and he, North, was a wonderful artist at watching a 
 Judge's tendency, to make it serve his turn, and yet never 
 failed to pay the greatest regard and deference to his opinion : 
 for so they get credit ; because the Judge for the most part thinks 
 that person the best lawyer that respects most his opinion. I have 
 heard his Lordship say, that sometimes he hath been forced to 
 give up a cause to the Judge's opinion when he (the Judge) 
 was plainly in the wrong, and when more contradiction had but 
 made him more positive ; and, besides, that in so doing he 
 himself had weakened his own credit with the Judge, and 
 thereby been less able to set him right when he was inclined 
 to it. A good opinion so gained often helps at another time to 
 good purpose, and sometimes to ill purpose ; as I heard it cre- 
 dibly reported of Serjeant Maynard, that, being the leading 
 counsel in a small-fee'd cause, would give it up to the Judge's 
 mistake, and not contend to set him right, that he might gain 
 credit to mislead him in some other cause in which he was 
 well fee'd." y These gentlemen of the long robe ought to have 
 changed places in Court with the highwaymen they were 
 retained to prosecute. 2 
 
 There was no nonsense, however arrant, a silly Judge might 
 speak, in deciding for North, which he would not back. Thus 
 a certain Mr. Justice Archer, who seems to have been the 
 laughing-stock of the profession, having, to the amusement of 
 the juniors, "noted a difference between a renunciation of an 
 executorship upon record and in pais," North said, " Ay, my 
 Lord ; just so, my Lord ;" upon which his Lordship became as 
 fierce as a lion, and would not hear the argument on the other 
 side. a But even such a learned and sensible Judge as Chief 
 
 y Life, i. 71. undue influence by always deciding in favour 
 
 z I have heard a circuit leader avow that he of the good points which the counsel stren- 
 
 sometimes feebly made bad points, to give the uously pressed; but this is the extent of 
 
 Judg3 the credit of overruling them, lest it my rim prius confidences. 
 
 •hould be thought his Lordship was undei a Archer's incapacity at Last cxated so 
 
2P-8 . LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chai\ XCIV. 
 
 Justice Hale, North could win by an affectation of modesty, 
 diffidence arid profound veneration. Early in his career, 
 when he found it difficult to get to his place in a very 
 crowded court, Sir Matthew said from the Bench, " Good 
 people, make way for this little gentleman ; he will soon make 
 way for himself." 
 
 His consultations were enormously long, and he gained vast 
 applause at them by his care and dexterity in probing the 
 cause, starting objections, inventing points, foretelling what 
 would be said by the opposite counsel and by the Judge, and 
 showing how the verdict might be lost or was to be secured. 
 But, to make security doubly sure, after mastering the record 
 and perusing the deeds to be given in evidence, he himself exa- 
 mined the witnesses, and thus had an opportunity of presenting 
 the facts properly to their minds. 
 
 Need we wonder that, from an humble beginner, rejoicing 
 in a cause that came to him, he soon became " Cock of the 
 Circuit," — all who had trials rejoicing to have him on their 
 side? 
 
 I shall give only one specimen of his conduct as a leader. 
 He was counsel for the defendant in an action tried before his 
 friend Judge Archer, for not setting out tithes, — in which the 
 treble value was to be recovered. Finding that he had not a 
 leg to stand upon, he manoeuvred to get his client off with the 
 single value ; — so he told his Lordship that this was a cause to 
 try a right of a very intricate nature, which would require the 
 reading of a long series of records and ancient writings, and 
 that it ought not to be treated as a penal action ; wherefore, 
 they should agree upon the single value of the tithes, for 
 which the verdict should be taken conditionally, and then pro- 
 ceed fairly to try the merits. The Judge insisted on this 
 course being adopted ; and the other side, not to irritate him, 
 acquiesced in North's proposal. " Then did he open a long 
 history of matters upon record, of bulls, monasteries, orders, 
 greater and lesser houses, surrenders, patents, and a great deal 
 more, very proper, if it had been true, while the counsel on the 
 other side stared at him ; and, having done, they bid him go to 
 his evidence. He leaned back, as speaking to the Attorney, 
 and then, ' My Lord," 1 said he, ' we are very unhappy in this cause. T/te 
 Attorney tells me they forgot to examine their copies with the originals 
 
 ranch scandal that they tried to remove him bene gesserit ; but he was prohibited froth 
 from his office, but could not, as, by some sitting on the bench. — Sir T. Rajm. Re? 
 accident, h e had been appointed quamdiu se 217. 
 
A.D. 1668. DRUNKEN FROLICS. 289 
 
 at the Tower? and (so folding up his brief), ' My Lord,'' said lie, 
 ' they must have the verdict, and ice must come better prepared another 
 time.'' So, notwithstanding all the mooting the other side could 
 make, the Judge held them to it, and they were choused of the 
 treble value." b 
 
 I shall conclude his circuit life with a redeeming anecdote. 
 " Beins: invited with the rest of the counsel to dine at Col- 
 Chester with the recorder, Sir John Shaw, who was well 
 known to be one of the greatest kill-cows at drinking in the 
 nation, he, with the rest of his brethren, by methods too well 
 known, got very drunk. They were obliged to go on, and in 
 that condition mounted, but some dropped and others pro- 
 ceeded. His Lordship (North) had a clerk, one Lucas, a very 
 drunken fellow, but at that time not far gone. He thought it 
 his duty to have a tender care of his master, who, having had 
 one fall (contrary to the sound advice of his experienced 
 clerk), would needs get up again, calling him all to nought for 
 his pains. His Lordship was got upon a very sprightly nag, 
 that trotted on very hard, and Lucas came near to persuade 
 him not to go so fast, but that put the horse upon the run, and 
 away he went with his master full speed, so as no one could 
 follow him. The horse, when he found himself clear of pur- 
 suers, stopped his course by degrees, and went with his rider 
 (fast asleep upon his back) into a pond to drink, and there sat 
 his Lordship on the sally." We are then told how a bai v 
 rister's clerk came up, and rescued his Lordship as he was 
 about to fall into the water, — how he was carried to a public 
 house and put to bed, while "the rest of the company went 
 on for fear of losing their market ;" — and how his Lordship 
 was astonished when he awoke next morning, having forgotten 
 every thing that had happened since his horse ran away with 
 him. It would seem that "his Lordship" could oc- , MO 
 casionally dismiss from his mind his briefs, his fees, 
 and his tricks, and enjoy good fellowship, — ever preserving 
 his characteristic caution; — for Eoger says, "he had strength 
 of head to bear a erreat deal : and when he found that innrmitv 
 coming upon him, he used to sit smiling and say little or 
 nothing." Once, when he was Attorney-General, having 
 dined with the Earl of Sandwich, he went in the afternoon to 
 
 b Life, i. 87. Very different was the prac- or asserting anything confidently by which 
 
 tice of Sir Matthew Hale. "He abhorred ignorant juries and weak Judges are too often 
 
 those too common faults of misrepresenting wrought upon."— Burnet's Life of Sir M. 
 
 evidence, quoting precedents or books falsely, Hale, 72. 
 
 VOL. IV. V 
 
290 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCIV 
 
 the Privy Council to plead upon a petition before the King. 
 Next day the Earl asked a Lord who had been present how 
 Mr. xlttomey behaved himself. " Very well" said the Lord. 
 " 1 thought so," answered the Earl, "for I sent him instructed with 
 at least three bottles in his belly." c 
 
 But we must now come to more serious matters, in which, 
 instead of the entertaining Roger, we must take for our guides 
 State Trials, Parliamentary Debates, Law Reports, and con- 
 temporary Histories. 
 
 \\ hile North had such success on the circuit, he was equallv 
 flourishing in Westminster Hall. By answering cases and 
 preparing legal arguments for Sir Jeffrey Palmer, and by flout- 
 ing at parliamentary privilege, he was still higher than ever 
 in favour with that potential functionary. It happened that 
 in the year 1668, after the fall of the Earl of Clarendon, a 
 writ of error was brought in the House of Lords upon the 
 judgment of the Court of King's Bench in the great case of 
 " The King v. Sir John Elliot, Denzil Hollis, and Others" decided 
 in the fifth year of the reign of Charles I., — Denzil Hollis, 
 now Lord Hollis, being the only defendant surviving. This, 
 it will be recollected, was a prosecution by the King against 
 five members of the House of Commons for what had been 
 done in the House on the last day of the preceding session, 
 when Sir John Finch was held in the chair while certain re- 
 solutions alleged to be seditious were voted, and one of the 
 defendants said " that the Council and Judges had all con- 
 spired to trample under foot the liberties of the subject." 
 They pleaded to the jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench, 
 " that the supposed offences were committed in parliament, 
 and ought not to be punished or inquired of in this Court or 
 elsewhere than in parliament." But their plea was over- 
 ruled, and they were all sentenced to heavy fine and im- 
 prisonment.' 1 
 
 Although there had been resolutions of the House of Com- 
 mons on the meeting of the Long Parliament condemning this 
 judgment, it still stood on record, and Lord Hollis thought it 
 was a duty he owed to his country, before he died, to have it 
 reversed. 
 
 Sir Jeffrey Palmer, as Attorney- General, pleaded in nullo 
 est erratum ; but having returned his writ of summons to the 
 House of Lords, and being in the habit of sitting there on the 
 woolsack as one of the assessors to the Peers, he could not 
 
 c Life. i. 90. d 3 St. Tr. 1*1. Lord Campbell's Sp;?chcs, p. 2 2. 
 
AD. 1668. APPOINTED KING'S COUNSEL. 291 
 
 himself argue the case as counsel at the bar. The King's 
 Serjeants declined to do so out of respect to the House o 
 Commons. Francis North thinking this a most favourable 
 opportunity to make himself known at Court as an antipar- 
 liamentarian lawyer, volunteered to support the judgment, 
 and his services were accepted. He says himself " he was 
 satisfied he argued on the right side, and that on the record 
 the law was for the King." Accordingly, on the appointed 
 day, he boldly contended that, as the Information averred that 
 the offences were committed against the peace, as privilege of 
 parliament does not extend to offences in breach of the peace, 
 as they had not been punished in the parliament in which 
 they were committed, and as no subsequent parliament could 
 take notice of them, they were properly cognizable in a Court 
 of common law. The judgment was reversed, — but North's 
 fortune was made. The Duke of York was pleased to inquire 
 " who that young gentleman was who had argued so well?" 
 Being told that " he was the younger son of the Lord North, 
 and, what was rare among young lawyers at that time, of 
 loyal principles," his Eoyal Highness undertook to encourage 
 him by getting the King to appoint him one of his Majesty's 
 counsel. North was much gratified by receiving a message 
 to this effect, but was alarmed lest the Lord Keeper Bridge- 
 man, who by his place was to superintend preferments in the 
 law, might conceive a grudge against him for this interference 
 with his patronage. The Lord Keeper acquitted him of all 
 blame, wished him joy, and with peculiar civility desired him 
 to take his place within the bar. 
 
 The job, however, seems very much to have shocked the 
 grave Benchers of the Middle Temple, or Frank had offended 
 them by the insolent airs which he assumed, for they refused 
 to call him to the Bench, " alleging, that if young men by 
 favour so preferred came up straight to the Bench, and by 
 their precedence topt the rest of the ancient Benchers, it 
 might in time destroy the government of the society." He 
 went round to the Judges complaining of this as a slight to 
 the King. " The very next day, in Westminster Hall, when 
 any of the Benchers appeared at the Courts, they received 
 reprimands from the Judges for their insolence, as if a person 
 whom his Majesty had thought fit to make one of his counsel 
 extraordinary was not worthy to come into their company, 
 and so dismissed them unheard, with declaration, that until 
 
 e 3 St. Tr. 333. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 Miey had done their duty in calling Mr. North to their Bench, 
 they must not expect to be heard as counsel in his Majesty's 
 Courts. This was English ; and that evening they conformed 
 and were re-instated." f 
 
 Things went on very smoothly with him now till the death 
 of Sir Jeffrey Palmer, when Sir Heneage Finch 
 
 ay ' ' being promoted to be Attorney-General, the Solici- 
 tor's place was vacant. g North being the only King's Counsel, 
 paid having been long employed in Crown business, had a fair 
 claim to succeed, and he was warmly supported by the Lord 
 Keeper as well as the new Attorney-General, who was de- 
 sirous of having him for a colleague ; but the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham, at this time considered Prime Minister, preferred Sir 
 William Jones, who was North's chief competitor in the 
 King's Bench, and over whose head he had been put when he 
 received his silk gown. 
 
 To terminate the difference they were both set aside, and 
 the office of Solicitor-General was given to Sir Edward 
 Turner, Speaker of the House of Commons, who held it for 
 a twelvemonth ; — at the end of which he was made Chief 
 Baron of the Exchequer, in the room of Sir Matthew Hale, 
 promoted to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
 
 Buckingham's influence had now greatly declined, and 
 May 20, North was made Solicitor-General without difficulty, 
 167 L Jones being solaced with a silk gown, and the pro- 
 mise of further promotion on the next vacancy. 11 
 
 CHAPTEK XCV. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD TILL HIS APPOINTMENT 
 
 AS LORD KEEPER. 
 
 The Cabal was now in its full ascender cy ; and as the leaders 
 
 did not take any inferior members of the government 
 
 into their councils, and contrived to prevent the 
 
 meeting of parliament for nearly two years, the new Solicitor 
 
 had only to attend to his profession. Of course he gave up 
 
 t Life, i. 65, 66. He was the only King's few till after the Revolution, 
 counsel then at the har, and there were very S Dug. Or. Jur. 117. b ibid. 
 
<LD. 1671-72. "AUTUMfc K2ADER" OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. 293 
 
 the circuit, and he set the example, generally followed for 150 
 years, of making the Court of Chancery his principal place of 
 practice, on being promoted to be a law officer of the Crown, 
 — henceforth going to other Courts only in cases in which the 
 Crown was concerned, or which were of very great magni- 
 tude. To keep up his law, — when he could be spared from 
 the Court of Chancery, he stepped across the Hall and seated 
 himself in the Court of King's Bench, " with his note book 
 in his hand, reporting as the students about the Court did, 
 and, during the whole time of his practice, every Christmas he 
 read over ' Littleton's Tenures.' He had hitherto practised 
 conveyancing to a considerable extent ; but he now turned 
 over this business to Siderfin the Reporter, whom he ap- 
 pointed to serve him in the capacity of "Devi!" as he him- 
 self had served Sir Jeffrey Palmer. He was on very decent 
 terms with Sir Heneage Finch, who had much assisted his 
 promotion : but he showed his characteristic cunning by an 
 expedient he adopted to get the largest share of the patent 
 business. According to immemorial usage, all patents of dig- 
 nity belong exclusively to the Attorney-General ; but - the 
 warrants for all other patents may be carried either to the 
 Attorney or Solicitor. North, with much dexterity, took into 
 his employment a clerk of Sir Jeffrey Palmer, who was re- 
 puted to have a magazine of the best precedents, and who had 
 great interest among the attorneys, whereby many patents 
 came to his chambers which otherwise would have gone tc 
 the Attorney-General's. 
 
 But if he was eager to get money, he spent it freely. He 
 was now appointed "Autumn Reader" of the a.d. i67i— 
 Middle Temple, and though the festivity was not 1672, 
 honoured with the presence of royalty, like Finch's in the 
 Inner Temple, it was conducted sumptuously, and cost him 
 above 1000/. He took for his subject, " the Statute of Fines," 
 which he treated very learnedly, and the arguers against him, 
 the best lawyers of the Society, did their part very stoutly. 
 On the " Grand Day " all the King's chief ministers attended 
 and the profusion of the best provisions and wine led to such 
 debauchery, disorder, tumult, and waste, that this was the 
 last public Reading in the Inns of Court, the lectures being 
 discontinued and the banqueting commuted for a fine. 
 
 I must not pass over his loves, although they were not 
 verv romantic or chivalrous. He was desirous of beins: mar- 
 ried — among other reasons, — because he was tired of dining 
 
294 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 in the Hall and eating " a costelet and salad at Clastelin's in 
 the evening with a friend," — and he wished to enjoy the plea- 
 sures of domestic life. One would have thought that the 
 younger son of a Peer — of great reputation at the bar,— Soli- 
 citor-General at thirty-one, and rising to the highest offices in 
 the law, — might have had no difficulty in matching to his mind, 
 — but he met with various rebuffs and disappointments. Above 
 all, he required a wealthy bride, — not then easily to be 
 obtained without the display of along rent roll. He first ad- 
 dressed the daughter of an old usurer in Gray's Inn, who 
 speedily put an end to the suit by asking him " what estate 
 his father intended to settle upon him for present maintenance, 
 jointure, and provision for children ? " He could not satisfy 
 this requisition by an " Abstract" of his " profitable rood of 
 ground in Westminster Hall." He then paid court to a co- 
 quettish young widow ; but after showing him some favour, 
 she jilted him for a jolly knight of good estate. The next 
 proposition was made to him by a City alderman, the father of 
 many daughters, who, it was given out, were to have each a 
 portion of 6000/. North dined with the alderman, and liked 
 one of them very much, but, coming to treat, the fortune 
 shrunk to 5000/. He immediately took his leave. The 
 alderman ran after him, and offered him to boot 500/. on the 
 birth of the first child, but he would not bate a farthing of the 
 6000/. 
 
 At last his mother found him a match to his mind in the 
 Lady Frances Pope, one of the three daughters and co-heirs 
 of the Earl of Down, who lived at Wroxton, in Oxfordshire, 
 with fortunes of 14,000/. a-piece. We are surprised to find 
 that, with all his circuit and Westminster Hall earnings, he 
 was obliged to borrow 600/. from a friend before he could 
 compass 6000'. to be settled upon her. He then ventured 
 down with grand equipage and attendance, and, in less than 
 a fortnight, obtained the young lady's consent, and the writ- 
 ings being sealed, the lovers were happily married. The 
 feasting and jollities in the country lasted three weeks, and 
 Mr. Solicitor, heartily tired of them, was very impatient to get 
 back to his briefs. However, he seems always to have treated 
 his wife, while she lived, with all due tenderness. He took a 
 house in Chancery Lane, near Serjeants' Inn, and acquired 
 huge glory by constructing a drain for the use of the neigh- 
 oourhood, — a refinement never before heard of in that quarter. 
 Th's was the happiest period of his life. 
 
A.D. 1673. RETURNED TO PARLIAMENT FOR LYNN. 295 
 
 In the beginning of 1673 the meeting of parliament could 
 be deferred no longer, and it was considered neces- 
 sary that the Solicitor-General should have a seat in 
 the House of Commons. Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury was now 
 to try his scheme of issuing writs for the election of members 
 without the warrant of the Speaker. It happened that there was 
 a vacancy for Lynn, in Xorfolk, by the death of Sir Kobert 
 Stuart, and North having great family and personal interest 
 in the town and neighbourhood, became a candidate to suc- 
 ceed him. After giving a handsome treat to the electors, he 
 was returned without opposition, — but not without grumbling 
 on their part, that there was no competitor to make the money 
 fly. Some of them testily exclaimed, that " Hobsons choice 
 was no choice." But, alas for Mr. Solicitor ! before he was 
 allowed to take his seat, all the elections under these writs 
 were declared void by the House of Commons, ' and he had 
 still the sea to drink. To the great joy of Lynn, a second 
 candidate was at last obtained iu Sir Simon Taylor, a wealthy 
 wine-merchant in the town. k Butts of sherry were opened 
 in the market-place, gin was as plentiful as water, every 
 spigot in the town ran beer without intermission, and the 
 greatest exertions were used to induce the electors to vote 
 for their townsman. However, the government was not to be 
 disgraced by the rejection of their law officer, and he was so 
 considerably at the head of the poll, that Sir Simon Taylor 
 signed the indenture of his return. There were good hopes 
 that, on account of the corrupt practices to which his friends 
 had resorted, he would have been thrown out upon a petition ; 
 but, according to the notions of election law which then pre- 
 vailed, the step of acquiescence which his opponent had taken 
 precluded the attempt, and he was allowed quietly to keep his 
 seat. 
 
 He remained member for Lynn till he was made Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, in January, 1675 ; but I can 
 hardly find any trace of his ever having spoken in the House 
 of Commons. During two short sessions, in 1673, he was 
 Solicitor-General, and things were in such confusion from 
 
 i 4 Pari. Hist. 507. Ante, p. 181. that he has no chance of success, equally 
 
 k I can testify, from having witnessed it, that rejoice — in the consciousness of their own in- 
 
 the scene of the greatest exultation and joy creased importance ; — and from his worship 
 
 in this world, is the procession of the " third the Mayor down to the beggar in the street, 
 
 man " entering a borough during a canvass for all expect to derive some gratification from 
 
 the election of members of parliament. Those the coming contest 
 who do not mean to support him, and know 
 
296 LORD. KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury being in opposition while he remained 
 Chancellor, that the members of the government were quite at 
 a loss what part to take in the Lower House, and the subordi- 
 nates seem to have remained silent, 
 
 Shaftesbury was at last turned out, and the Great Seal was 
 given to Sir Heneage Finch, who, being asked by the King 
 to name his successor, said, " Who should succeed the Captain 
 but the Lieutenant ?" and North became Attorney-General." 1 
 He had for his colleague as Solicitor his old rival, Sir William 
 Jones, who seems to have been a considerable man, — who 
 afterwards had the virtue voluntarily to give up office that he 
 might join the popular party, — and who, if not cut off by an 
 early death, would probably have acted the part of Lord 
 Somers at the Revolution, and left a great name in history. 
 The account we have of the demeanour of North and Jones to 
 each other is creditable to them, if not to the general courtesy 
 of the bar in their time: "although in the course of their 
 practice they were often chosen on purpose to resist each 
 other, especially in hot factious causes, yet they never clashed 
 in words, or made any show of private animosity, as commonly 
 in such cases is done with great noise and indecency. But they con- 
 versed, visited, and entertained familiarly, though less fre- 
 quent after the times grew hot, and preferment of the one 
 made a greater distance between them." n 
 
 Parliament met in a few weeks after North's promotion. In 
 Jan. i, those good old times when, according to Blackstone, 
 1674 - the English constitution was " theoretically perfect," 
 the appointment to an office of profit under the Crown did not 
 vacate a seat in the House of Commons, — but a notice was 
 given to question North's right to sit longer as representative 
 for Lynn, on the ground that, as Attorney-General, he had a 
 writ of summons to the House of Lords, and was bound to 
 give his attendance there. He diligently prepared to meet 
 this objection, and had got up all the precedents and 
 authorities, but as these were decidedly in his favour the 
 notice was suffered to drop. It is rather unlucky for his 
 parliamentary fame, that the motion against him was not 
 brought forward ; for he must have defended himself ; he pro- 
 b tbly would have done it ably ; the House had alwaj^s listened 
 
 m Or. Jur. 118. a Examen, 514. was promoted from being Solicitor to be 
 ° In a note upon this sentence of my work Attorney-General in the year 1834, be lost 
 by some laborious editor in a future age, it his seat for Dudley, and was kept-out of par- 
 will be said, " The author here talks very liament nearly a whole session till re-elected 
 feelingly ; for I find that when he himself for the city of Edinburgh." 
 
A.D. 1674. HIS BUSINESS AT THE BAR. 297 
 
 favourably to the answer to a personal attack, — and after a 
 successful maiden speech he might have become a distin- 
 guished debater. He still remained mute. We are told that 
 " little or nothing of the King's business in the House of 
 Commons leaned upon him, because Mr. Secretary Coventry 
 was there, who managed for the Court." p The skill, readi- 
 ness, and influence of this leader of the House of Commons 
 seem to have superseded the efforts of all the other members 
 of the government, who were reminded by him of the useful 
 maxim, " Least said, is soonest mended.' 1 '' He is celebrated as 
 " an ancient member who had the nice step of the House, and 
 withal was wonderfullv witty:" and we are assured (which 
 could not be truly said respecting all his successors who may 
 have merited the same panegyric for talent and dexterity), 
 that " he had never said any thing in the House which after- 
 wards proved a lie, and had that credit, that whatever he 
 affirmed, the House believed." North once or twice spoke a 
 few words, " in resolving the fallacies of the country party," 
 but did not venture beyond an opinion upon a point of law 
 which incidentally arose. 
 
 '• He could not attend the House constantlv, but took the 
 liberty of pursuing his practice in Westminster Hall." q 
 There he was easily the first ; and the quantity of business 
 which he got through in Chancery (" his home ") and the 
 other Courts where he went special seems to have been 
 enormous. His mode of preparation was (like Lord 
 Erskine's) to have a consultation in the evening before 
 reading his brief, when "hevras informed of the history of 
 the cause, and where the pinch was." Next morning at four 
 he was called by a trusty boy, who never failed, winter or 
 summer, to come into his chamber at that hour, 1 " and by the 
 sitting of the Court he had gone through his brief, and was 
 ready to do ample justice to his clients. 
 
 Fees now flowed in upon him so fast that he hardly knew 
 how to dispose of them. He seems to have taken them from 
 his clients with his own hand. At one time he had had a fancy, 
 for his health, to wear a sort of skullcap. He now routed out 
 three of these, which he placed on the table before him. and 
 into these he distributed the cash as it was paid to him. 
 
 P Henry Coventry, youngest son of Lord met at eight in the morning, and sat till 
 
 Chancellor Coventry. noon. 
 
 i Life.i. 176. The hours then kept must r This early rising rendered it necessary 
 
 have heen very inconvenient for lawyers in for him to take " a short turn in the othei 
 
 parliament, as all the Courts and both Houses world after dinner." 
 
298 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 *' One had the gold, another the crowns and half-crowns, and 
 another the smaller money." When these vessels were full, 
 they were committed to his brother Koger, who told out the 
 pieces, and put them into bags, which he carried to Child's, 
 the goldsmith, at Temple-Bar. s 
 
 But still Mr. Attorney was dissatisfied with his position. 
 He could not but be mortified by his insignificance in the 
 House of Commons. The country party there was rapidly 
 gaining strength, and although it was not then usual for the 
 Crown to turn out its law officers on a change of ministers, he 
 began to be very much frightened by threats of impeachment 
 uttered against all who were instrumental in executing the 
 measures of the government. Shaftesbury was in furious op- 
 position. While only at the head of a small minority in the 
 House of Lords, the House of Commons was more and more 
 under his influence. North was exceedingly timid, always 
 conjuring up imaginary dangers, and exaggerating such as 
 he had to encounter. He now exceedingly longed to lay 
 his head on "the cushion of the Common Fleas,' instead of 
 running the risk of its being laid on the block on Tower Hill. 
 
 Yaughan, the Chief Justice of that Court, died, and his 
 Jan. 25, wishes were accomplished, — notwithstanding some 
 1675. intrigues to elevate Sir William Jones or Sir Wil- 
 liam Montagu.' When it came to the pinch, North was rather 
 shocked to think of the sacrifice of profit which he was 
 making, " for the Attorney's place was (with his practice) 
 near 7000?. per annum" and the cushion of the Common Pleas 
 not above 4000/. But accepting, he accounted himself en- 
 franchised from the Court brigues and attendances at the price 
 of the difference. " x 
 
 North held the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 
 nearly eight years, which may be divided into two periods : — 
 1st, From his appointment till the formation of the council of 
 thirty, on the recommendation of Sir William Temple, in the 
 year 1679 ; — 2ndly, From thence till he received the Great 
 Seal in the end of the year 1682. During the former he mixed 
 little in politics, and devoting himself to his juridical duties, 
 he discharged them creditably. 
 
 At this time, and for long after, the emoluments of the 
 
 s Life, i. 171. Roger assures us he did greatly since Bacon's time, which probably 
 
 not purloin any part of the treasure, — for arose from the abolition of the military 
 
 which he takes infinite credit to himself. tenures and the Court of Wards. 
 
 1 Or. Jurid. 118. x Life, i. 183. 
 
 u The official fees seem to have fallen off 
 
A.D. 1675. CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE COMMON PLEAS. 299 
 
 Judges in Westminster Hall depended chiefly upon fees, and 
 there was a great competition between the different Courts for 
 business. The King's Bench, originally instituted for criminal 
 proceedings, had, by a dexterous use of their writ of " latitat " 
 tricked y the Common Pleas of almost all civil actions; and 
 when the new Chief Justice took his seat, he found his Court 
 a desert. There was hardly sufficient business to countenance 
 his coming every day in term to Westminster Hall, while the 
 Serjeants and officers were repining and starving. 2 But he 
 was soon up with the King's Bench, by a new and more dex- 
 terous use of the " capias" the ancient writ of that Court — 
 applying it to all personal actions. ' ' After this process came 
 into common use, it is scarce to be conceived how the Court 
 revived and flourished, being, instead of vacation in term, 
 rather term in vacation, so large was the increase of trials by 
 nisi prius out of the Court, as also of motions and pleas in the 
 Court." a Hence Anstey sings in the Pleader's Guide, — 
 
 " If haply John-a-Stile provoke 
 The legal fight 'gainst John-a-Noke, 
 The ' Latitat ' the foe besieges, 
 And baffles him in Banco Regis ; 
 Skiird with ac etiams to perplex, 
 And foil with bill of Middlesex. 
 While ' Capias ' is rejoic'd to seize, 
 And plunder him in Common Pleas." b 
 
 The Serjeants were for some time most grateful to the 
 Chief Justice, and hailed him as their deliverer from the 
 usurpation of the King's Bench ; but before long he got into 
 very bad odour with them for allowing his brother Eoger, not 
 of the order of the Coif, to make certain motions, which they 
 said belonged exclusively to them. To show their resent- 
 ment, they one day refused to bring forward any busi- 
 ness. The Chief Justice, in great indignation, adjourned 
 the Court, saying, that the following day they would hear 
 common barristers, or attorneys, or the suitors themselves 
 plead in spite of the monopoly of the Serjeants, that there 
 might not be a failure of justice. " This was like thunder to 
 the Serjeants, and they fell to quarrelling one with another 
 about being the cause of this great evil they had brought upon 
 
 y It was called " Trickum in lege." twelve : " and that if, having a stray motion, 
 
 2 The Court of C P. in point of business you wished to take a shot at them, " they 
 
 seems then to have been as badly off as I were like a covey of partridges in November 
 
 remember the Exchequer, — when it was said you could never find them sitting." 
 
 that the Barons " met punctually at half- a Life, i. 193. 
 
 past eleven, and rose half an hour before b pj. G. Lect v. 
 
300 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap.XCV. 
 
 themselves. In the afternoon they attended the Chief and the 
 other Judges of the Court, and in great humility owned their 
 fault and begged pardon, and they would be careful not to give 
 the like offence for the future. The Chief told them that the 
 affront was in public and in the face of the Court, and they 
 must make their recognition there next morning in such 
 manner as the greatness of their offence demanded, and then 
 they should hear what the Court would say to them. Accord- 
 ingly they did, and the Chief first, and then the rest in order, 
 gave them a formal chiding with acrimony enough, — all which 
 with dejected countenances the} 7 were bound to hear. "When 
 this discipline was over, the Chief pointed to one to move, 
 which he did more like one crying than speaking ; and so 
 ended the comedy, as it was acted in Westminster Hall, called 
 ' The Dumb Day.' " c 
 
 At this time a Judge, when appointed, selected a circuit, to 
 which he steadily adhered, till another, which he preferred, 
 became vacant. Chief Justice North for several years "rode 
 the Western ;" and in his charges to Juries, as well as in his 
 conversation with the county gentlemen, he strongly incul- 
 cated the most slavish Church-and-King doctrines, insomuch 
 that the Cavaliers called him " Delicice Occidents ," or, " the 
 Darling of the West." 
 
 Though careful to avoid all fanatics, he was once completely 
 taken in by a Mr. Duke, who had a very handsome house in 
 Devonshire. This gentleman asked the Chief Justice and his 
 brother Judge to pass a night with him, and they, believing 
 him to be perfectly orthodox, accepted the invitation. But in- 
 stead of getting a priest to read prayers before their Lord- 
 ships, " he himself got behind the table in his hall and read a 
 chapter, and then gave them a long-winded prayer after the 
 Presbyterian way. The Judges took it very ill, but did not 
 think fit to affront him in his own house. Next day, when 
 they came early in the morning to Exeter, all the news was 
 that the Judges had been at a conventicle, and the Grand Jury 
 intended to present them and all their retinue for it ; and much 
 merriment was made upon the subject." d As they were above 
 the allowed number, and not of the family of the master of the 
 house, they were all certainly liable to be prosecuted under 
 "the Conventicle Act," which the High Church party then 
 prized so dearly. 
 
 The Chief Justice afterwards went the Northern Circuit 
 
 c Life, i. 195-198. Serjeant's case, by Manning. d Life, i. 226. 
 
A.D. 1675. THE POPISH PiOT. 301 
 
 attended by his brother Roger, who gives a most entertaining 
 account of his travels, and who seems to have thought the 
 natives of Northumberland and Cumberland as distant, as little 
 known, and as barbarous, as we should now think the Esqui- 
 maux or the aborigines of New Zealand. 
 
 Till the Popish plot broke out, Chief Justice North had no 
 political trials before him ; and the only cases which gave 
 him much anxiety were charges of witchcraft. He does not 
 appear, like Chief Justice Hale, to have been a believer in 
 the black art ; but, with his characteristic timidity, he was 
 ashamed to combat the popular prejudice, lest the countrymen 
 should cry, " This Judge hath no religion, — he cloth not be- 
 lieve witches." Therefore he avoided trying witches himself 
 as much as possible, and turned them over to his brother Judge, 
 Mr. Justice Eaymond, whom he allowed to hang them. He was 
 once forced to try a wizard ; but the fraud of a young girl, 
 whom the prisoner was supposed to have enchanted and made 
 to spit pins, was so clearly exposed by the witnesses, that the 
 Chief Justice had the boldness to direct an acquittal. 6 
 
 The Popish plot he treated as he did witchcraft. He dis- 
 believed it from the beginning, but was afraid openly to ex- 
 press a doubt of its reality. He thought it might be exposed 
 by the press, and he got a man to publish an anonymous pam- 
 phlet against it, to which he contributed; but sitting along 
 with Chief Justice Scroggs, who presided at the trial of those 
 charged with being implicated in it, he never attempted to 
 restrain this -'butcher's son and butcher" from slaughtering 
 the victims/ 
 
 So on the trial of Lord Stafford, though he privately affected 
 severely to condemn the proceeding, he would not venture to 
 save Lord Nottingham, the High Steward, from the disgrace 
 of assisting in that murder ; and he dryly gave his own opinion, 
 that two witnesses were not necessary to each overt act of 
 treasons 
 
 We have still more flagrant proof of his baseness on the trial 
 of Eeading, prosecuted by order of the House of Commons for 
 
 9 Life, i. 255. death. And nothing can qualify the silence 
 
 f " At the Old Bailey," says his apologist, but the inconceivable fury and rage of the 
 
 " where the Oatesian storms were most im- community, gentle and simple, at that time, 
 
 petuous, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's and the consequences of an open opposition to 
 
 Bench steered the vessel, and the other Judges the chief, whose part it was to act as he did, 
 
 had little or no share in the conduct, whereby demanding no assistance from any of them." 
 
 his Lordship (Xorth) in the main was rather — Life, i. 302. 
 
 an observer than an actor in these proceed- s 7 St. Tr 1527. 
 tags, to which hung the issues of life and 
 
302 LORD KEEPER GUILEORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 trying to suppress evidence of the plot. North himself now 
 presided, and having procured a conviction, — in sentencing 
 the defendant to fine, imprisonment, and pillory, he said, — 
 " I will tell 3 7 ou your offence is so great, and hath such a 
 relation to that which the whole nation is concerned in, be- 
 cause it was an attempt to baffle the evidence of that con- 
 spiracy, which, if it had not been, by the mercy of God, 
 detected, God knows what might have befallen us all by this 
 time." h 
 
 We now come to present North on the political stage, 
 where he continued to act a very conspicuous and 
 disreputable part down to the time of his death. In 
 the year 1679, when the King adopted his new plan of govern- 
 ment by a Council of thirty, of which Shaftesbury was made 
 President, and into which Lord Eussell and several of the 
 popular leaders were introduced, it was thought fit to balance 
 them by some determined ultra-royalists ; and the Lord Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, who had acquired himself the 
 reputation of being the most eminent of that class, was se- 
 lected, — although he had not hitherto been a Privy Coun- 
 cillor. At first he seldom openly gave any opinion in Council, 
 but he secretly engaged in the intrigues which ended in the 
 abrupt prorogation and dissolution of the parliament, in the 
 dismissal of Shaftesbury, and the resignation of Lord Eussell 
 and the "Whigs. The scheme of government was then altered, 
 and a Cabinet, consisting of a small number of Privy Council- 
 lors, was formed, North being one of them. To his opinion 
 on legal and constitutional questions, the government was now 
 disposed to show more respect than to that of Lord Chancellor 
 Nottingham. 
 
 There being much talk against the Court in the London 
 coffee-houses, it was wished to suppress them by proclamation ; 
 and our Chief Justice being consulted on the subject, gave this 
 response, — that " though retailing of coffee may, under certain 
 circumstances, be an innocent trade, yet as it is used at present 
 in the nature of a common assembly to discourse of matters of 
 state, news, and great persons, it becomes unlawful ; and as 
 the coffee-houses are nurseries of idleness and pragmaticalness, 
 and hinder the consumption of our native provisions, they 
 may be treated as common nuisances." Accordingly a procla- 
 mation was issued for shutting up all coffee-houses, and for- 
 bidding the sale of coffee in the metropolis ; but this caused 
 
 h 1 St. Tr. 310. 
 
A.D. 1679. "PETITIONERS" AND "ABHORRERS." 303 
 
 such, a general murmur, not only among politicians and idlers, 
 but among the industrious classes connected with foreign ami 
 colonial trade, that it was speedily recalled. 
 
 The meeting of the new parliament summoned in the end 
 of 1679 having been repeatedly postponed, there arose the 
 opposite factions of "Petitioners" and " Abhorrers," — the 
 former petitioning the King that parliament might be speedily 
 assembled for the redress of grievances, and the latter, in their 
 addresses to the King, expressing their abhorrence of such se- 
 ditious sentiments. The " Petitioners, " however, were much 
 more numerous and active, and a Council was called to consider 
 how their proceedings might be stopped or punished. Our 
 Chief Justice recommended a proclamation, which the King 
 approved of, and ordered the Attorney-General, Sir Creswell 
 Levinz. to draw. Mr. Attorney, alarmed by considering how 
 he might be questioned for such an act on the meeting of par- 
 liament, said, " I do not well understand what my Lord Chief 
 Justice means, and I humbly pray of your Majesty that his 
 Lordship may himself draw the proclamation/'— King. "My 
 Lord, I think then you must draw this proclamation." — Chief 
 Justice. " Sire, it is the office of your Majesty's Attorney-Gene- 
 ral to prepare all royal proclamations, and it is not proper for 
 any one else to do it. I beg that your Majesty's affairs may go 
 in their due course ; but if in this matter Mr. Attorney doubts 
 anything, and will give himself the trouble to call upon me, 
 I will give him the best assistance I can." 
 
 Sir Creswell having written on a sheet of paper the formal 
 commencement and conclusion of a royal proclamation, car- 
 ried it to the Chief Justice, who filled up the blank with a 
 recital that, "for spurious ends and purposes relating to the 
 public, persons were going about to collect and procure the 
 subscriptions of multitudes of his Majesty's subjects to peti- 
 tions to his Majesty, — which proceedings were contrary to the 
 known laws of this realm, and ought not to go unpunished," 
 — and a mandate to all his Majesty's loving subjects of what 
 rank or degree soever, "that they presume not to agitate or 
 promote any such subscriptions, nor in any wise join in any 
 petition in that manner to be preferred to his Majesty, upon 
 pain of the utmost rigour of the law, and that all magistrates 
 and other officers should take effectual care that all snch of- 
 fenders against the laws be prosecuted and punished according 
 to their demerits." k 
 
 i Exaiaen, 140. Life, i. 298. k fciameii, 64/. 
 
304 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chip. XCTV 
 
 Parliament at last met, and strong measures were taken 
 Oct. 21, against the " Abhorrers," who had obstructed the 
 1680. right of petitioning. An inquiry was instituted re- 
 specting the Proclamation. Sir Creswell Levinz was placed 
 at the bar, and asked by whose advice or assistance he had 
 prepared it. He several times refused to answer ; but being 
 hard pressed, and afraid of commitment to the Tower, he 
 named the Lord Chief Justice North, — against whom there 
 had been a strong suspicion, but no proof. A hot debate arose, 
 which ended in the Kesolution, " That the evidence this day 
 given to this House against Sir Francis North, Chief Justice 
 of the Common Pleas, is sufficient ground foi this House to 
 proceed upon an impeachment against him for high crimes 
 and misdemeanours." 111 
 
 He was a good deal alarmed by the vote of impeachment, 
 but it raised him still higher in favour at Court. Next day, 
 presiding in the House of Lords as Speaker, in the absence of 
 the Lord Chancellor, and seeming very much dejected, King 
 Charles (according to his manner) " came and clapped himself 
 down close by him on the woolsack, and, ' My Lord,' said he, 
 ' be of good comfort; I will never forsake my friends, as my father 
 did.'' ' His Majesty, without waiting for a reply, then walked 
 off to another part of the House. 
 
 A committee was appointed to draw up the articles of im- 
 Jan. is, peachment against the Chief Justice ; but before 
 1681 - they made any report, this parliament too was dis- 
 solved. 
 
 Soon after the summoning of Charles's last parliament, 
 North was obliged to set off upon the spring circuit ; and not- 
 withstanding his best efforts to finish the business rapidly, he 
 could not arrive at Oxford till the two Houses had assembled, 
 and had entered into the controversy respecting the trial of 
 Fitzharris. He lodged in Trinity College, as his lady was one 
 of the co-heirs of the founder, and there he kept a table for the 
 well-affected members of either House, — being "allowed tc 
 battle in the butteries." 
 
 As Lord Nottingham was able to be present and to preside 
 in the House of Lords, North had no opportunity for any public 
 appearance ; but we need not doubt that he was very active in 
 private intrigues, and that ho warmly supported the opportune 
 doctrine, however much he might inwardly condemn it, that a 
 Commoner may not be tried for his life by the House of Lords 
 
 m Com. Joura. Nov. 25, 1679. 4 Pari. Hist. 1229. 
 
A.D. 1681. HIS CONDUCT OX THE TRIAL OF COLLEGE. 305 
 
 He was of the small junto to whom was intrusted the secret 
 of immediate dissolution. The moment the deed was done, he 
 set off for London, pretending to be afraid of what he called 
 " the positive armament against the King, which manifestly 
 showed itself at Oxford." 
 
 As soon as the Cabinet met at Whitehall, North advised the 
 issuing of a declaration to justify the dissolution of the three 
 last parliaments which had met respectively at Westminster 
 and at Oxford, — and himself drew an elaborate one, which 
 was adopted. This state paper certainly puts the popular 
 party in the wrong, upon the " exclusion question" and other 
 matters, with considerable dexterity, and it was supposed to 
 have contributed materially to the re-action going on in favour 
 of the government. 
 
 So far his conduct was legitimate, and in the fair exercise of 
 his functions as a Privy Councillor; but I am sorry to say 
 that he now sullied his ermine by a flagrant disregard of his 
 duties as a Judge. The grand jury for the city of London 
 having very properly thrown out the bill of indictment against 
 Stephen College, "the Protestant joiner," it was resolved to 
 try him at Oxford ; and for this purpose a Special Commission 
 was issued, — at the head of which was placed Lord Chief 
 Justice North. Bumet savs mildlv, " North's behaviour in 
 that whole matter was such that, probably, if he had lived to 
 see an impeaching parliament, he might have felt the ill effects 
 of it." n After perusing the trial, I must say, that his miscon- 
 duct upon it was most atrocious. The prisoner, being a 
 violent enemy to Popery, had attended the City members to 
 Oxford as one of their guard, with " No Popery" flags and 
 cockades, — using strong language against the Papists and 
 their supporters, but without any thought of using force. Yet 
 the Chief Justice was determined that he should be found 
 guilty of compassing and imagining the King's death, and 
 levying war against him in his realm. College's papers, 
 which he was to use in his defence, were forcibly taken 
 from him, on the ground that they had been written by 
 some other persons, who gave him hints what he was to say. 
 They were in reality prepared by his legal advisers, Mr. 
 Aaron Smith and Mr. West. The prisoner was checked and 
 browbeaten as often as he put a question or made an obser- 
 vation. His defence was much more able than could fi£?e 
 
 n 0. T. i. 504. 
 Examen, 589. Roger North was himself one of the counsel for the Crowr, 
 VOL. IV. X 
 
306 LOUD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCT. 
 
 been expected from a person in his station of life ; — but, of 
 course, lie was convicted. The Chief Justice, in passing 
 sentence, observed, " Look you, Mr. College ; because you say 
 you are innocent, it is necessary for rne to say something in 
 vindication of the verdict, which I think the Court were all 
 well satisfied with. I thought it was a case, that, as you 
 made your own defence, small proof would serve the turn to 
 make any one believe you guilty. For, as you defend your- 
 self by pretending to be a Protestant, I did wonder, I must 
 confess, when you called so many witnesses to your religion 
 and reputation, that none of them gave an account that they 
 saw 3'ou receive the Sacrament within these many years, or 
 any of them particularly had seen you at church in many 
 years, or what kind of Protestant you were. But crying aloud 
 against the Papists, — it was proved here who you called 
 Papists. You had the boldness to say the King was a Papist, 
 the Bishops were Papists, and the Church of England were 
 Papists. If these be the Papists you cry out against, what 
 kind of Protestant you are I know not, — I am sure you can be 
 no good one. How it came into your head, that were but a 
 private man, to go to guard the Parliament, I much wonder. 
 Suppose all men of your condition should have gone to have 
 guarded the Parliament, what an assembly had there been ! 
 And though you say you are no man of quality, nor likely to 
 do any thing upon the King's guards or the King's person, jet 
 if all of your quality had gone upon the same design, what ill 
 consequences might have followed ! We see what has been 
 done by Massaniello, a mean man in another country, — what 
 by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw in this kingdom." College 
 asked him to fix the day of his death, but he answered that 
 that depended on the King ; adding, in a tone of great hu- 
 manity, "that he should have due notice of it to prepare, by 
 repenting of his crimes." p College's innocence was so mani- 
 fest, that even Hume, eager to palliate all the atrocities of this 
 reign, says, " that his whole conduct and demeanour prove 
 him to have been governed by an honest but indiscreet zeal 
 for his country and his religion." On the 31st of August, 
 1 681, the sentence, with all its savage barbarities, was carried 
 into execution. " Sir Francis Noith," observes Roger Coke, 
 " was a man cut out, to all intents and purposes, for such a 
 work." q 
 
 He was next called upon to assist at the immolation of a 
 
 V g St. Tr. 550-723 1 Detection, ii 36H. 
 
A.D. 1682. PLAN FOR MAKING COURTLY SHERIFFS. 30v 
 
 nobler victim, who escaped from the horns of the altar. 
 Shaftesbury had been for some time very careful never to 
 open his mouth on politics out of the city of London and 
 county of Middlesex, and during the Oxford parliament had 
 touched on no public topic except in the House of Lord*. 
 It was resolved at all hazards to bring him to trial ; but 
 this could only be done by an indictment to be found at the 
 Old Bailey. There did North attend when the indictment 
 was to be preferred, and resolutely assist Lord Chief Justice 
 Temberton in perverting the law, by examining the wit- 
 nesses in open Court, and by trying to intimidate and mis- 
 lead the Grand Jury ; but he was punished by being present 
 at the shout which lasted an hour when "Ignoramus" was 
 returned. r 
 
 He next zealously lent himself to the scheme of the Court 
 for upsetting the municipal privileges of the city of London, 
 and of obtaining sheriffs for London and Middlesex, who 
 would return juries at the will of the government. The Lord 
 Mayor having been gained over, and the stratagem devised 
 of creating a sheriff by the Lord Mayor drinking to him, in- 
 stead of by the election of his fellow-citizens, — the difficulty 
 was to find any freeman of fair character who would incur ail 
 the odium and risk of being so introduced to the shrievalty. 
 It so happened that at that time there returned to England 
 a brother of the Chief Justice, Mr. Dudley, afterwards Sir 
 Dudley, North, who was free of the city from having been 
 apprenticed there to a merchant, and who had amassed con- 
 siderable wealth by a long residence in Turkey. It being 
 suggested at Court that this was the very man for their 
 Sheriff, 8 " the King very much approved of the person, but was 
 very dubious whether the Chief Justice, with his much caution 
 and wisdom, would advise his brother to stand in a litigious 
 post. But yet he resolved to try ; and one day he 
 spoke to Sir Francis with a world of tenderness, and 
 desired to know if it loould be too much to ask his brother Dudfcy to 
 hold Sheriff on my Lord May 01*' s drinking ? ' : The wily Chief Jus- 
 tice immediately saw the advantage this proposal might bring 
 to the whole family, and returned a favourable answer. 
 'For matter of title," says Eoger, "he thought there was 
 
 r Ante, p. 235. had often been before the Kadi, and be had 
 
 * It was said, by way of jest, on the other become well acquainted with tlu use of the 
 
 ride, that he was only selected by the Court bow-string. 
 
 to answer thtir purposes, as in Turkey he 
 
 x 2 
 
30S LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 mere squeak than wool, for whatever people thought was a1 
 the bottom, if a citizen be called upon an office by the 
 government of the city and obeys, where is the crime ? 
 But then such a terrible fear was artificially raised up in the 
 city as if this service was the greatest hazard in the world." 
 Sir Francis gently broke the matter to his brother, saying, 
 ' ' that there was an opportunity which preferred itself whereby 
 he might make a fortune if he wanted it, and much enlarge 
 what he had, besides great reputation to be gained, which 
 would make him all the days of his life very considerable, 
 laying open the case of the Lord Mayor's right very clear 
 and plain, against which in common sense there was no 
 reply." Dudley, however, made nu^ury objections, and talked 
 of the terrible expense to which he should be exposed. The 
 Chief Justice urged that if he served, the obligation was so 
 transcendent, that there could be no employment by com- 
 mission from the Crown which would not fall to his share, 
 "and as for the charge," said he, — "here, brother, take 
 1000/. to help make good your account, and if you never have 
 an opportunity by pensions or employments to reimburse you 
 and me, I will lose my share ; else I shall be content to re- 
 ceive this 1000/. out of one half of your pensions when they 
 come in, and otherwise not at all." ' The merchant yielded ; 
 and under this pure bargain, proposed by the Judge be- 
 fore whom the validity of the appointment might come to 
 be decided, — when his health was given by the Lord Mayor 
 as Sheriff of London and Middlesex, he agreed to accept the 
 office. 
 
 But the old sheriffs insisted on holding a Common Hall 
 for the election of their successors, according to ancient usage, 
 on Midsummer day, — when Lord Chief Justice North had the 
 extreme meanness, at the King's request, to go into the city 
 and take post in a house near Guildhall, belonging to Sir 
 George Jeffreys, " who had no small share in the conduct of 
 this affair, to the end that if any incident required imme- 
 diate advice, or if the spirits of the Lord Mayor should droop, 
 which in outward appearance were but faint, there might be 
 a ready recourse." It is true, the opposite faction had the 
 Lord Grey de Werke and other leaders from the west end oi 
 the town, to advise and countenance them ; but this could be 
 no excuse for a Judge so degrading himself. The poll going 
 for the popular candidates, the Lord Mayor, by Chief Justice 
 
 « Life, 11. 16-20. 
 
 
A.D. 1682. THE KING ABSOLUTE IN THE CITY. 339 
 
 North's advice, under pretence of a liot, attempted to ad- 
 journ the election ; but the Sheriffs required that the polling 
 should continue, and declared PapiHon and Dubois duly 
 elected. u 
 
 This causing great consternation at "Whitehall, a council 
 was called, to which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were 
 summoned. Lord Chief Justice North, by the King's com- 
 mand, addressed them, saying, " That the proceedings of the 
 Sheriffs at the Common Hall after the adjournment were 
 not only utterly null and void, but the persons were guilty 
 of an audacious riot and contempt of lawful authority, for 
 which by due course of law they would be severely punished ; 
 but in the mean time it was the Lord Mayor's duty, and his 
 Majesty's pleasure, that they should go back to the city and 
 summon the Common Hall, and make election of Sheriffs for 
 the year ensuing." The Lord Mayor, having been told that 
 the courtiers would bamboozle him and leave him in the 
 lurch, — when North had concluded, said, " My Lord, will 
 your Lordship be pleased to give me this under your hand ?" 
 The King and all the councillors were much tickled to see the 
 wily Chief Justice thus nailed, "expecting some turn of wit 
 to fetch himself off, and thinking to have sport in seeing how 
 woodenly he would excuse himself." But to their utter asto- 
 nishment, for once in his life Francis North was bold and 
 straightforward, and cheating them all, he answered, without 
 any hesitation, " Yes, and you shall have it presently." Then 
 seizing a pen, he wrote, " I am of opinion, that it is in the 
 Lord Mayor's power to call, adjourn, and dissolve the Common 
 Hall at his pleasure, and that all acts done there, as of the 
 Common Hall, during such adjournment, are mere nullities, 
 and have no legal effect." This he signed, and handed to the 
 Lord Mayor, who then promised obedience/ 
 
 Accordingly, another Common Hall was called, at which it 
 was pretended that Sir Dudley North and Eich were elected, 
 and they were actually installed in the office of Sheriff. By 
 the contrivance of Lord Chief Justice North, the office of Lord 
 Mayor for the ensuing year Avas likewise filled by a thorough 
 passive-obedience tool of the Court. Gould, the liberal candi- 
 date, had a majority of legal votes on the poll, but under a pre- 
 tended scrutiny, Prit chard was declared duly elected, and Sir 
 John More, the renegade Mayor, willingly transferred to him 
 the insignia of Chief Magistrate, so that the King had now 
 
 u Life, ii. 20. * Ibid. ii. 23. 
 
310 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV. 
 
 the city authorities completely at his devotion. Shaftesbury 
 fled to Holland ; and it was for the Court to determine when 
 the blow should be struck against the popular leaders who 
 remained. 
 
 Such were the services of Lord Chief Justice North, which 
 all plainly saw would ere long be rewarded by higher pro- 
 motion. The health of Lord Nottingham, the Chancellor, was 
 rapidly declining, and the Court had already designated his 
 successor. Lord Craven, famous for wishing to appear inti- 
 mate with rising men, — in the circle at Whitehall now seized 
 Lord Chief Justice North by the arm and whispered in his 
 ear; — and the foreign ambassadors so distinctly saw the sha- 
 dow of the coming event, that they treated him with as great 
 respect as if he had been prime minister, " and when any of 
 them looked towards him and thought he perceived it, they 
 very formally bowed." 
 
 We are told, that in many things North acted as " Co -Chan- 
 cellor " with Nottingham ; and for the first time the office of 
 Chancellor seems to have been like that of Sheriff of Middle- 
 sex, one in its nature, but filled by two officers of equal au- 
 thority. It is said, that " the aspirant dealt with all imagin- 
 able kindness and candour to the declinant, and that never 
 were predecessor and successor such cordial friends to each 
 other, and in every respect mutually assistant, as those two 
 tvere." y 
 
 Such hopes on an expected vacancy of the Great Seal are 
 sometimes disappointed, but here there were very solid rea- 
 sons for entertaining them. AVhile the Lord Chancellor was 
 languishing, the Chief Justice being at Windsor, the King 
 plainly intimated to him, that when the fatal event, which 
 must be shortly looked for, had taken place, the Great Seal 
 tvould be put into his hands. He modestly represented him- 
 self to his Majesty as unfit for the place, and affected by all 
 his art and skill to decline it. In truth, he really wished to 
 convey to the King's mind the impression that he did not 
 desire it, although he had been working so foully for it, — 
 as he knew it would be pressed upon him, there being no com- 
 petitor so knowing and so pliant, and he had an important 
 stipulation to make for a pension before he would accept it. 
 When he came back .to London, and confidentially mentioned 
 what had passed between him and the King, he pretended 
 to be annoyed, and said, " that if the Seal were offered to him 
 
 >' Life, ii. 64, 6f 
 
A.D. 1682. DECLINES GREAT SEAL WITHOUT PENSION. 311 
 
 he was determined to refuse it;" but it is quite clear that he 
 was highly gratified to see himself so near the great object of 
 his ambition, and that his only anxiety now was, that he might 
 drive a good bargain when he should consent to give up " the 
 cushion of the Common Pleas." 
 
 Lord Nottingham having died about four o'clock in the 
 afternoon of Monday, the 18th of December, 1682, z the 
 Great ISeal was carried next morning, from his house in 
 Great Queen Street, to the King at Windsor. The follow- 
 ing day his Majesty brought it with him to Whitehall, and 
 in the evening sent for the Lord Chief Justice of the Com- 
 mon Pleas, to offer it to him. AVhen North arrived he found 
 Lord Rochester, the Treasurer, and several other ministers, 
 closeted with Charles. As yet there was no distinction be- 
 tween the funds to be applied to the King's private expenses 
 and to the public service. Therefore, the Exchequer being 
 now very empty, — and the resolution being taken never niore 
 to summon a parliament for supplies, —it was considered an 
 object that the Keeper of the Great Seal should be contented 
 with the fees of his office, without any allowance or pension 
 from the Crown. Charles himself was careless about such 
 matters, but the Treasurer had inculcated upon him the 
 importance of this piece of economy. As soon as North en- 
 tered, his Majesty offered him the Seal, and the ministers 
 began to congratulate the new Lord Keeper ; but, with many 
 acknowledgments for his Majesty's gracious intentions, he 
 begged leave to suggest the necessity, fur his Majesty's honour, 
 that a pension should be assigned to him. as it had been to his 
 predecessor, for otherwise the dignity of this high office could 
 not be supported. Rochester interposed, pointing out the 
 necessity, in tunes like these, for all his Majesty's servants to 
 be ready to make some sacrifices ; that the emoluments of the 
 Great Seal were considerable ; and that it would be more 
 becoming to trust to his Majesty's bounty than to seek to 
 drive a hard bargain with him. But Sir George Jeffreys 
 being yet only a bustling city officer, who could not with any 
 decencv have been put at the head of the law ; the Attomev 
 and Solicitor- General not being considered men of mark or 
 likelihood ; Sir Harbottle Grimston, the Master of the Polls, 
 being at death's door, and no other common-law Judge besides 
 himself being producible, — the little gentleman was firm, and 
 positively declared that he would not touch the Great Seal 
 
 ■ 1 Vernon, 115. 
 
312 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap XCVJ 
 
 without a pension. After much haggling, a compromise tool? 
 place, by which he was to have 2000/. a year instead of the 
 4000/. a year assigned to his predecessor. The King theD 
 lifted up the purse containing the Seal, and putting it into 
 his hand, said, "Here, my Lord, take it; you will find it 
 heavy." " Thus," says Roger North, " his Majesty acted the 
 prophet as well as the King ; for, shortly before his Lordship's 
 death, he declared that, since he had the Seal, he had not enjoyed one 
 easy and contented minute." a 
 
 CHAPTER XCYI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD GUILFOPvD TILL THE DEATH OF 
 
 CHARLES II. 
 
 When the new Lord Keeper came home, at night, from White- 
 Dec. 2o, hall t6 his house in Chancery Lane, bringing the 
 1682. Great Seal with him, and attended by the officers of 
 the Court of Chancery, — instead of appealing much gratified, 
 as was expected by his brother and his friends, who were 
 waiting to welcome him, he was in a great rage, — disappointed 
 that he had not been able to make a better bargain, and, per- 
 haps, a little mortified that he had only the title of " Lord 
 Keeper" instead of the more sounding one of " Lord Chan- 
 cellor." Recriminating on those with whom he had been so 
 keenly acting the chapman, he exclaimed, "To be haggled 
 with about a pension, 1 * as at the purchase of a horse or an ox ! 
 After I had declared that I would not accept without a pension, 
 to think I was so frivolous as to insist and desist all in a mo- 
 ment ! As if I were to be wheedled and charmed by their 
 insignificant tropes ! To think me worthy of so great a trust, 
 and withal so little and mean as to endure such usage ! It is 
 disobliging, inconsistent, and insufferable. What have I done 
 that may give them cause to think me of so poor a spirit as to 
 be thus trifled with ? " c It might have been answered, that, 
 though the King and the courtiers made use of him for their 
 
 a Life, ii. 68, 69. Crown Off. Min. fol. Keeper was in office, and not, as might be 
 
 108. supposed, an allowance on his retirement. 
 
 b By this word " pension," I conceive we c Life, i. 415. 
 are to understand salary while the Lord 
 
A.D. 1683. HIS INSTALLATION AS LORD KEEPER. 31$ 
 
 own ends, they had seen his actions, understood his character, 
 and had no great respect for him. Till Jeffreys was a little 
 further advanced, they could not run the risk of breaking with 
 him ; — but then he was subjected to all sorts of mortifications 
 and insults. 
 
 The day after his appointment " he kept a private seal for 
 writs at his house in Chancery Lane," d and on the first day 
 of the following Hilary term he took his place in the Court of 
 Chancery. By this time he was in possession of his predeces- 
 sor's house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, — and 
 he had a grand procession from thence to Westminster Hall, 
 attended by the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Craven 
 and Eochester, the great officers of State, and the 
 Judges. He took the oaths, the Master of the Eolls holding 
 the book. He does not appear to have delivered any inaugural 
 address. The attendant Lords stayed and heard a motion or 
 two, and then departed, leaving the Lord Keeper in Court. 6 
 
 Thev might have been well amused if thev had remained. 
 
 i CD v 
 
 For the crooked purposes of the government, with a view to 
 the disfranchising of the City of London by the quo warranto 
 depending against it, Pemberton was this day to be removed 
 from being Chief Justice of the King's Bench to be Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, and Edmund Saunders was to 
 be at once raised from wearing a stuff gown at the bar to be 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This keen but unscrupulous 
 lawyer was previously to be made a Serjeant that he might be 
 qualified to be a Judge, and, coming into the Court of Chan- 
 cery, he presented the Lord Keeper with a ring for himself, 
 and another for the King, inscribed with the courtly motto, 
 " Principi sic placuit." The Lord Keeper then accompanied 
 him into the Court where he was to preside, called him to the 
 bench, and made him a speech on the duties of his office. The 
 ceremonies of the day were concluded by his Lordship after- 
 wards going to his old Court, the Common Pleas, and there 
 swearing in Pemberton as his successor, whom he congratu- 
 lated upon "the ease with dignity" which he was now to 
 enjoy. 
 
 Parasites and preferment-hunters crowded the levee of the 
 new Lord Keeper. He was immediately waited upon by the 
 courtly Evelyn, who discovered in him a thousand good 
 qualities/ 
 
 rt l Vernon, 115. e Cr. Off. Min. foL 105. on the death of the Earl of Nottingham, the 
 i " Sir F. North being made Lord Keeper Lord Chancellor, I went to congratulate 
 
314 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVl 
 
 In the midst of these blandishments he applied himself with 
 laudable diligence to the discharge of his judicial duties. He 
 declared that he was shocked by many abuses in the Court of 
 Chancery, and he found fault with the manner in which his 
 two predecessors, Bridgeman and Nottingham, had allowed the 
 practice of the Court to lead to delay and expense. It was 
 properly understood at the bar and on the bench, that nothing 
 done in Lord Shaftesbury's time should ever be referred to as 
 a precedent, on account of his rashness :md ignorance. But 
 it was even the fashion to talk of Bridgeman as "a splitter of 
 hairs," and Nottingham as " a formalist," s ai.d to lament how 
 justice was obstructed by the slow process, the motions, the 
 exceptions, the injunctions, and the re-hearings which they 
 had encouraged. 
 
 North's conduct as a law reformer was extremely charac- 
 teristic. He talked much of issuing a new set of " Rules and 
 Orders " to remedy all abuses, but he was afraid " that it would 
 give so great alarm to the bar and officers, with the solicitors, 
 as would make them confederate and demur, and, by making a 
 tumult and disturbance, endeavour to hinder the doing any thing 
 of that kind which they would apprehend to be very prejudicial 
 to their interests." h Then, when he wished to simplify the 
 practice and to speed causes to a hearing and final decree, he 
 considered that he was not only to regard the suitors, but that 
 " there was a justice due as well to the Crown, which had 
 advantage growing by the disposition of places, profits, by 
 process of all sorts, as also the Judges and their servants, and 
 counsel at the bar, and solicitors, who were all in possession 
 of their advantages, and by public encouragement to spend 
 their youth to make them fit for them, and had no other means 
 generally to provide for themselves and their families, and 
 had a right to their reasonable profits, if not strictly by law, 
 yet through long connivance." ' 
 
 He nretended to have an intention to abolish the usage of 
 selling the places of the Masters m Chancery, which were in 
 the disposal of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, as "the 
 Court had not so much power to coerce exorbitances or to con- 
 trol their profits, when they bought their places, as if they 
 
 him. He is a most knowing, learned, and — Mem. i. 513. 
 
 ingenious person; and, besides having an S This is like the slighting manner in which 
 
 excellent person, of an ingenuous and sweet Lord Mansfield was spoVen of in the time of 
 
 disposition, very skilful in music, painting, Lord Kenyou. 
 
 the new j-fcilosophy, and political studies." h Life, ii. 76. i Ibid. ii. 83. 
 
l.D. 1683-85. HIS CHANCERY REFORMS. 315 
 
 were conferred gratis, for, upon the least rumour of a reform, 
 they cry out — Purchase ! — 1 aluable consideration I ' But he very 
 prudently doubted how far he could effectually cure the evil if 
 he were to dispose of the offices without taking money for 
 them. He also reflected how indifferently such a generous 
 act would be accepted by the public. He thought, judging by 
 his own standard of right, that "it would have been termed 
 either vanity or folly, and perhaps both ; and all the skilful 
 had reputed no better of him, and so, instead of having the 
 action approved, he had been rendered contemptible for it, as 
 one that did not understand his own advantages ; if selling such 
 places was inconvenient, constant usage that established it 
 must answer." k So, after due deliberation, his Lordship 
 thought it the most becoming course " stare super antiquas vias " 
 — to follow the steps of his predecessors, and to dispose of 
 those places for a price, as they had done before him. 
 
 But he retrenched " Heraldry," or motions for giving pre- 
 cedence to causes, "which had become so common that Sir 
 John Churchill, a famous Chancery practitioner, used to take 
 as much as 28/. in walking from Lincoln's Inn to the Middle 
 Temple Hall, where the sittings were held out of term, with 
 breviates respecting the booking and retarding of hearings." 
 He abolished the rule that an injunction for want of answer 
 must continue after the coming in of the answer, if exceptions 
 were taken to it for insufficiency. He likewise checked vexa- 
 tious exceptions to Masters' Beports ; and he is said to have 
 been very particular in granting re-hearings. He very laudably 
 dictated the material parts of his decrees ; and he encouraged 
 the registrars to come to him privately in case of any diffi- 
 culty, to avoid the frequent disputes in Court about minutes 
 after the decree has been pronounced. 
 
 Such being the amount of his reforms, I think we must say 
 that his alleged merit consists chiefly in the profession of 
 good intentions ; that he allowed the practice of the Court to 
 remain pretty much as he found it ; and that if he saw and 
 approved what was right, he followed what was wrong, — 
 aggravating his errors by disregarding the strong a.d. i6S3— 
 dictates of his conscience. 1(,So - 
 
 Nevertheless, he applied himself very assiduously to the busi- 
 ness of his Court. — which, from his experience at the bar, and 
 from his having often sat for his predecessor, was quite familiar 
 tc him ; — and he seems to have disposed of it satisfactorily. 
 
 k Life, ii. 132, 133. 
 
316 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV1 
 
 He was not led into temptation by having to decide in equity 
 any political case ; and no serious charge was preferred against 
 him of bribery or undue influence.™ Till the meeting of par- 
 liament in the reign of James, and the failure of his health, he 
 prevented the accumulation of arrears ; and, upon the whole, 
 as an Equity Judge, he is to be praised rather than censured. 
 I wish as much could be said of his political conduct while 
 he held the Great Seal. He may have wished " to bring the 
 King to rule wholly by law, and to do nothing which, by any 
 reasonable construction, might argue the contrary ; " but for 
 this purpose he would make feeble efforts, and no sacrifice ; 
 and all the measures of the Court, however profligate, when 
 resolved upon, he strenuously assisted in carrying into exe- 
 cution. 
 
 The ministers who now bore swa} T , and who were on several 
 points opposed to each other, were Halifax, Sunderland, and 
 Rochester. The Duke of York, restored to the office of Lord 
 High Admiral and to the Privy Council, in direct violation of 
 the " Test Act," had so much influence, that it was said that 
 " to spite those who wished to prevent him from reigning at 
 the King's death, he was permitted to reign during the King's 
 life." The Duchess of Portsmouth was likewise at the head of 
 a party at Court, although Mrs. Gwin, her Protestant rival, 
 did not interfere with politics. With none of these would the 
 Lord Keeper combine. His policy was to study the peculiar 
 humours of the King — to do whatever would be most agreeable 
 personally to him — to pass for " the King's friend" — and to 
 be ; ' solus cum solo." n 
 
 Charles, although aware of his cunning and his selfishness, 
 was well pleased with the slavish doctrines he laid down, and 
 with the devoted zeal he expressed for the royal prerogative ; 
 and till Jeffreys' superior vigour, dexterity, and power of 
 pleasing gained the ascendency, usually treated him with 
 decent consideration. Every Sunday morning when the King 
 was in town, the Lord Keeper went with the other great 
 officers to Whitehall, to wait on the King to chapel. "That 
 was usually a grand assembly of the Court ; and the great men 
 had opportunity to speak in discourse to the King as he gave 
 them occasion, of which his Majesty was no niggard ; and very 
 
 m In the short notice of him in a Collec- H , and of some gold plate in a box," L 
 
 tion of Lives published in 1712, there is 177, but no particulars are given, and it ia 
 
 allusion to " an odd story of a Chancery suit entitled to no weight, 
 
 between the Duke of 1ST and Sir P n Life, ii. 163, 165, 169. 
 
 
A.D. 1683. DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE CITY. 317 
 
 excellent things said there, on the one side and on the other, 
 were an high regale to such as had the advantage to stand 
 wiihin hearing." ° A Cabinet- Council was held almost every 
 Sunday evening. "\\ hen the Court was at \\ incisor, this made 
 Sunday a travelling day. The Lord Keeper had a lodging 
 provided fur him there in the Dean's house. For the ease of 
 attendance, the King would come from AVindsor to hold a 
 public Council at Hampton Court. There, and at "Whitehall, 
 the Lord Keeper had a lodging in the palace. If at any time 
 he wished to see the King privately, he went directly to the 
 royal bedchamber, and took possession of it. " In that part of 
 the Court were always attendants who straight found wbeie 
 the King was, and told him my Lord Keeper was there ; and 
 the King knowing he had something to say to him, never 
 failed to come to him, and that without any delay." p 
 
 He never would give any opinion on foreign affairs, nor 
 attend a committee of Council summoned specially to con- 
 sider them, professing himself, for want of a fit education 
 and study, incompetent to judge at all of these matters, and 
 declaring, like a true courtier, that "King Charles II. under- 
 stood foreign affairs better than all his councils and coun- 
 cillors put together." q But he regularly attended all othei 
 Cabinet meetings, and when there was any business of a 
 judicial nature to be done at the council-table he always pre- 
 sided there, " the Lord President not having the art of ex- 
 amining into and developing cases of intricacy." r 
 
 The first of these in which he had to display his powers, 
 was the disfranchisement of the City of London. j une 12, 
 Saunders, counsel in the quo warranto, having been b<i - 
 appointed Chief Justice, to decide in favour of the sufficiency 
 of the pleadings which he himself had drawn, the opinion of 
 the Court of King's Bench had been pronounced for the 
 Crown, "that all the City charters were forfeited,"' because a 
 toll had been demanded alleged to be illegal, and a petition 
 had been presented alleged to be seditious,— notwithstanding 
 the argument that these could not be considered the acts of 
 the Ens Legis, called the Corporation, which was to be punished 
 for them, and that if the offences of extortion and libel had 
 been committed, thev should be visited onlv upon the individuals 
 who were guilty of them. Formal judgment was not yet en- 
 tered on the record, — to give an opportunity to the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Citizens to make their submission, and to ac- 
 
 • Life, ii. 168. P Ibid. ii. 178. ■> Ibic' ii. 181. r Ibid. ii. 169. 
 
318 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV1 
 
 cept terms which might henceforth, annihilate their privileges 
 and make them the slaves of the government. They accord- 
 ingly did prepare a petition to the King, imploring his princely 
 compassion and grace, — which they presented to him at a 
 Council held at Windsor on the 18th of June, 1683. The 
 petition being read, they were ordered to withdraw, and when 
 they were again called in, the Lord Keeper thus addressed 
 them, disclosing somewhat indiscreetly the real motives for 
 the quo warranto : — " My Lord Mayor, 1 am by the King's com- 
 mand to tell you that he hath considered the humble petition 
 of the City of London, where so many of the present magis- 
 trates and other eminent citizens are of undoubted loyalty and 
 affection to his service ; that for their sakes his Majesty will 
 show the City all the favour they can reasonably desire. It 
 was very long before his Majesty took resolutions to question 
 their charter ; it was not the seditious discourses of the coffee 
 houses, the treasonable pamphlets and libels daily published 
 and dispersed thence into all parts of the kingdom, the out- 
 rageous tumults in the streets, nor the affronts to his Courts of 
 Justice could provoke him to it. His Majesty had patience 
 until disorders were grown to that height, that nothing less 
 seemed to be designed than a ruin to the government both of 
 Church and State." After pointing out the mischief of having 
 factious magistrates, he adds, — " It was high time to put a 
 stop to this growing evil. This made it necessary for his Ma- 
 jesty to inquire into the abuses of franchises, that it might be 
 in his power to make a regulation sufficient to restore the 
 City to its former good government.". He then stated the re- 
 gulations to which they were required to assent, — among 
 which were, — "That Ao Lord Mayor, Sheriff, or other officer 
 should be appointed without the King's consent ; that the 
 King might cashier them at his pleasure ; that if the King 
 disapproved of the Sheriffs elected, he might appoint others 
 by his own authority ; and that the King should appoint all 
 magistrates in the City by his Commission, instead of their 
 being elected as hitherto." In conclusion he said, — " The City 
 ought to look upon this as a great condescension on his Ma- 
 jesty's part ; it being in the nature of a reservation of a small 
 part of what is already in his power by the judgment. My 
 Lord Mayor, it is his Majesty's pleasure that you return to the 
 City and consult the Common Council, that he may speedily 
 know your resolutions thereupon, and accordingly give his 
 directions. That jou may see the King is in earnest and 
 
A.D. 1683. RAISED TO THE PEERAGE. 319 
 
 the matter is not capable of delay, I am commanded to let yon 
 know he hath given order to his Attorney-General to enter up 
 judgment on Saturday next, unless you prevent it by your 
 compliance in all these particulars." 5 
 
 The citizens refused to comply with these terms, and judg- 
 ment was entered up. Thus, on the most frivolous pretexts, 
 and by a scandalous perversion of the forms of law. was the 
 City of London robbed of the free institutions which it had 
 enjoyed, and under which it had flourished for many ages. 
 The proceeding was less appalling to the public than the trial 
 and execution of eminent patriots, but was a more dangerous 
 blow to civil libertv. London remained disfranchised, and 
 governed by the agents of the Crown, during the rest of this 
 reign, and till the expected invasion of the Prince of Orange 
 near the conclusion of the next, — when, too late, an offer was 
 made to restore its charters with all its ancient privileges. 
 Immediately after the Revolution, they were irrevocably con- 
 firmed by act of parliament. 1 
 
 The Lord Keeper's conduct in this affair gave such high 
 satisfaction at Court, that, as a reward for it, he was raised to 
 the peerage by the title of Baron Guilford. His brother 
 says that he did not seek the elevation from vanity, but that 
 he might be protected against the attacks which might here- 
 after be made upon him in the House of Commons. He ob- 
 tained it on the recommendation of the Duke of York, who 
 overlooked his dislike of Popery in respect of his steady hatred 
 to public liberty." 
 
 To show his gratitude, the new Peer directed similar pro- 
 ceedings to be commenced against many other corporations, — 
 which ended in the forfeiture or surrender of the charters of 
 most of the towns in England in which the liberal party had 
 enjoyed an ascendency. 
 
 Gilbert Burnet, about this time appointed Preacher at the 
 Rolls, thought he had secured a protector in the Lord Keeper ; 
 but as soon as this Whig divine had incurred the displeasure 
 of the Court, his Lordship wrote to the Master of the Polls 
 that the King considered the chapel of the Rolls as one of his 
 own chapels, and that Dr. Bumet must be dismissed as one 
 disaffected to the government. In consequence he was obliged 
 to go beyond seas, and to remain in exile, till he returred 
 with King William/ 
 
 • 8 St. Tr. 1039-1350. * 2 W. k M. Bess. i. c. 8. u Life. u. V*. 
 
 x Own Times, ii. 2ti9. 
 
320 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCV1 
 
 Soon after followed the disgraceful trials for high treason, 
 which arose out of the discovery of the Eye-House plot. The 
 Lord Keeper did not preside at these ; but having directed 
 them, — superintending the general administration of justice, 
 and especially bound to see that the convictions had been ob- 
 tained on legal evidence, — he is deeply responsible for the 
 blood that was shed. He must have known that if, in point 
 of law, the witnesses made out a case to be submitted to the 
 jury against Lord Russell, that virtuous nobleman was really 
 prosecuted for his support of the Exclusion Bill ; and he must 
 have seen that against Algernon Sydney no case had been 
 made out to be submitted to the jury, as there was only one 
 witness that swore to any thing which could be construed into 
 an overt act of treason, and the attempt to supply the defect by 
 a MS. containing a speculative essay on government, which 
 was found in his study, and had been written many years 
 before — was futile and flagitious/ Yet did he sign the 
 death-warrants of both these men, — whose names have been 
 honoured, while his has been execrated, in all succeeding 
 times. 
 
 It is edifying and consolatory to think that he was outdone 
 by his own arts, and that the rest of his career was attended 
 by almost constant mortification, humiliation, and wretched- 
 ness. Saunders enjoyed the office of Chief Justice of the 
 King's Bench only for a few months, being carried off by an 
 apoplexy soon after the decision of the great London quo war- 
 ranto cause. z An intrigue was immediately set on foot to pro- 
 cure the appointment for Jeifreys, who had more than ever 
 recommended himself to the Court by his zeal on the trial of 
 Lord Russell, in which he had eclipsed the Attorney and Soli- 
 citor-General, — and he was anxiously wanted to preside at the 
 trial of Sydney, against whom the case was known to be so 
 slender, but who was particularly obnoxious on account of his 
 late quarrel with the Duke of York, and his sworn enmity to 
 despotism. The pretensions of Jeffreys were supported by 
 Sunderland, probably out of ill will to the Lord Keeper, who 
 had intuitively shown a great jealousy of the new favourite. 
 But the proposal produced great opposition and bickerings 
 among different sections of courtiers. The Lord Keeper of 
 course resisted it totis viribus, representing to the King that the 
 office, according to ancient and salutary usage, ought to be 
 
 y 8 St. Tr. 578, 818. too ill to be present when it \xn pronounced 
 
 x Although this decision was his, he was by the senior puisne Judge. 
 
A.D. 1683. JEFFREYS MADE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. 321 
 
 offered to the Attorney and Solicitor-General, who had been 
 irregularly passed over on the appointment of the late Chief 
 Justice, to gain an object of such magnitude as the forfeiture of 
 the City charters ; that Saunders was a man of immense learn- 
 ing, which countenanced his sudden elevation ; but that Jeffreys, 
 though gifted with a fluency of speech, was known to be un- 
 equal to so high an office ; and that the whole profession of 
 the law, and the public, would condemn an act so arbitrary 
 and capricious. Charles was, or pretended to be, impressed 
 by these arguments, which he repeated to Sunderland, and the 
 office was kept vacant for three months after the death of 
 Saunders. a But on the 29th of September, the Lord Keeper 
 had the mortification to put the Great Seal to the writ consti- 
 tuting Jeffreys '" Chief Justice of England," and on the first day 
 of the fullowing Michaelmas term to make a speech, publicly 
 congratulating him on his rise to the supreme seat of criminal 
 justice — so well merited by his learning, his abilities, and his 
 services. 
 
 What was worse, the new Lord Chief Justice was not only 
 sworn a Privy Councillor, but, in a few weeks, was admitted 
 into the Cabinet, where he, from the first, set himself to op 
 pose the opinions, and to discredit the reputation, of him 
 who, he knew, had opposed his appointment, and whom (his 
 ambition being still unsatiated) he was resolved, in due time, 
 to supplant. 
 
 Jeffreys began with interfering very offensively in the ap- 
 pointment of puisne Judges, — which of right belonged to the 
 Lord Keeper. At first he was contented with the reputation 
 of power in this department. The Lord Keeper having an- 
 nounced privately to Serjeant Bedingfield that he was to be 
 made a Judge, Jeffreys worked upon him, by the threat of 
 stopping his promotion, to make him publish to the world that 
 he owed it exclusively to the Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench. b 
 
 He next resolved to make a Judge, by his own authority, of 
 a man almost as worthless as himself. This was Sir Bobert 
 Wright, who had never had any law, who had spent his 
 patrimony in debauchery, and who. being in great distress, 
 had lately sworn a false affidavit to enable him to commit a 
 fraud upon his own mortgagee. There being a vacancy on the 
 bench, the Lord Keeper waited on his Majesty to " take his 
 pleasure" on the appointment of a fit person, whom he named. 
 
 a See SuncterlaDd's Letter, Clar. Corr. i. 82. b Life, ii. 93. 
 
 VOL. IV. Y 
 
322 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVI. 
 
 — King. " My Lord, what think you of Serjeant "Wright ? 
 "Why may not he be the man?" — Guilford. " Because, Sir, I 
 know him too well, and he is the most unfit person in England 
 to be made a Judge." — King. " Then it must not be." Upon 
 this they parted ; but the next time that the Lord Keeper was 
 in the royal presence, the King again said, " Why may not 
 Wright be a Judge ? He is strongly recommended to me ; but 
 I would have a due respect paid to you, and I would not make 
 him without your concurrence. Is it impossible, my Lord ?" 
 — Guilford. " Sir, the making of a Judge is your Majesty's 
 choice, and not my pleasure. I am bound to put the Seal as I 
 am commanded, whatever the person may be. It is for your 
 Majesty to determine, and me, your servant, to obey. c But I 
 must do my duty by informing your Majesty of the truth 
 respecting this man, whom I personally know to be a dunce 
 and no lawyer ; who is not worth a groat, having spent his 
 estate by debauched living ; who is without honest}', having 
 been guilty of wilful perjury to gain the borrowing of a sum 
 of money. And now, Sir, I have done my duty to your 
 Majesty, and am ready to obey your Majesty's commands in 
 case it be your pleasure that this man shall be a Judge." — 
 King. " My Lord, I thank you." (Exit King.) — Next day 
 there came a warrant for the appointment of " our right trusty 
 and right well beloved Sir Robert Wright to be one of the 
 Justices of our Court before us." 
 
 Jeffreys was not satisfied with his triumph without pro- 
 a.d. 1683— claiming it to all Westminster Hall, " Being there 
 168+ - that same morning, while the Court of Chancery was 
 
 sitting, he beckoned to Wright to come to him, and giving him a 
 slap on the shoulder, and whispering in his ear, he flung him 
 off, holding out his arms towards the Lord Keeper. This was 
 a public declaration that, in spite of that man above there, Wright 
 should be a Judge. His Lordship saw all this, as it was intended 
 he should, and it caused him some melancholy." But he 
 found it convenient to pocket the insult ; he put the Great 
 Seal to Wright's patent, and assisted at the ceremony of his 
 installation. There is no trace of the Lord Keeper's speech 
 on this occasion, so that we do not know in what terms he 
 complimented the new Judge on his profound skill in the law, 
 his spotless integrity, and his universal fitness to adorn the 
 judgment-seat. d 
 
 c Till the Revolution, and even for some tionary. 
 time after, the King's personal command was d This wretch became so great a favourite 
 considered a justification to every func- in the next reign, that Herbert was turned 
 
A.D. 1684. INSULTED BY JEFFREYS. 323 
 
 When heated with liquor, Jeffreys could not now conceal 
 his contempt for the Lord Keeper, even in the King's pre- 
 senc3. It is related that, upon the hearing of a matter before 
 the Council, arising out of a controversy for jurisdiction between 
 two sets of magistrates, Guilford proposed some sort of com- 
 promise between them, when the Lord Chief Justice, " flaming 
 drunk," came from the lower to the upper end of the board, 
 and " talking and staring like a madman," bitterly inveighed 
 against " Trimmers," and told the King " he had Trimmers in 
 his Court, and he never would be easy till all the Trimmers were 
 sent about their business." " The Lord Keeper, knowing that 
 these darts were aimed at him, e moved the King that the whole 
 business should be referred to the Lord Chief Justice, and that 
 he should make a report to his Majesty in Council of what 
 should be fit to be done." This was ordered, and Guilford 
 seems to have entertained a hope that Jeffreys, from the state 
 of intoxication he was in, would entirely forget the reference, 
 and so might fall into disgrace/ 
 
 But the most serious difference between them in Charles's 
 time was on the return of Jeffreys from the northern circuit 
 in the autumn of 1684 — when, backed by the Duke of York, 
 he had a deliberate purpose of immediately grasping the Great 
 Seal. At a Cabinet Council, held on a Sunday evening, he 
 stood up, and addressing the King while he held in his hands 
 the rolls of the recusants in the north of England : " Sir," said 
 he, " I have a business to lay before your Majesty which I 
 took notice of in the north, and which well deserves your 
 Majesty's royal commiseration. It is the case of numberless 
 members of your good subjects that are imprisoned for re- 
 cusancy : I have the list of them here to justify what I say. 
 They are so many that the great gaols cannot hold them 
 without their lying one upon another." After tropes and 
 figures about " rotting and stinking in prison," he concluded 
 with a motion to his Majesty " that he would, by his pardon, 
 discharge all the convictions for recusancy, and thereby restore 
 air and liberty to these poor men." This was a deep-laid 
 
 out of the office of Chief Justice of the King's f Life, ii. 179. It should be recollected 
 
 Bench to make way for him, and he presided that, at this time, the Council met in the 
 
 at the trial of the seven Bishops, thereby afternoon, between two and three— dinner 
 
 greatly accelerating and furthering the Revo- having taken place soon after twelve, and a 
 
 lution. — 12 St. Tr. 189. little elevation from wine was not more dis- 
 
 e It is curious that Roger gravely states, creditable at that hour, than in our own time 
 
 that " he was dropped from the 1 ory list and between eleven and twelve o"clock at night. 
 turned Trimmer " — Life, i. 401. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVI 
 
 scheme, for besides pleasing the royal brothers, one of whom 
 
 was a disguised, and the other an avowed Papist, he expected 
 
 that Guilford must either be turned out for refusing to put the 
 
 Great Seal to the pardon, or that he would make himself most 
 
 obnoxious to the public, and afterwards to parliament, by 
 
 compliance. A general silence prevailed, and the expectation 
 
 was that Halifax, or Eochester, who were strong Protestants, 
 
 would have stoutly objected. The Lord Keeper, alarmed lest 
 
 the motion should be carried, and seeing the dilemma to which 
 
 he might be reduced, plucked up courage, and said, " Sir, I 
 
 humbly entreat your Majesty that my Lord Chief Justice may 
 
 declare whether all the persons named in these rolls are 
 
 actually in prison or not?" — Chief Justice. "No fair man 
 
 could suspect my meaning to be that all these are actual 
 
 prisoners ; for all the gaols in England would not hold them. 
 
 But if they are not in prison, their case is little better ; for 
 
 they lie under sentence of commitment, and are obnoxious to 
 
 be taken up by every peevish sheriff or magistrate, and are 
 
 made to redeem their liberty with gross fees, which is a cruel 
 
 oppression to them and their families." — Lord Keeper. " Sir, 
 
 1 beg your Majesty will consider what little reason there is to 
 
 grant such a general pardon at this time. For they are not all 
 
 Roman Catholics that lie under sentence of recusancy, but 
 
 sectaries of all kinds and denominations ; perhaps as many, or 
 
 more, who are all professed enemies to your Majesty and your 
 
 government in church and state. They are a turbulent people, 
 
 and always stirring up sedition. Y\ hat will they not do when 
 
 your Majesty gives them a discharge at once ? Is it not better 
 
 that your enemies should live under some disadvantages, and 
 
 be obnoxious to your Majesty's pleasure, so that, if they are 
 
 turbulent or troublesome, you may inflict the penalties of the 
 
 law upon them ? If there be any Eoman Catholics whom you 
 
 wish to favour, grant to them a particular and express pardon, 
 
 but do not by a universal measure set your enemies as well as 
 
 your friends at ease. The ill uses that would be made of 
 
 such a step to the prejudice of your Majesty's interests and 
 
 affairs are obvious and endless." g The King was much struck 
 
 with these observations, urged with a boldness so unusual in 
 
 the Lord Keeper. The other Lords wondered, and the motion 
 
 was dropped. 
 
 The Lord Keeper, not without reason, boasted of this as the 
 most brilliant passage of his life. "When he came home at 
 
 e Life, ii. 150, 153. 334. 
 
A.D. 1685. DEATH OF CHARLES II. 325 
 
 niglit, lie broke out in exclamations : " What can be their 
 meaning? Are they all stark mad?" And before he went 
 to bed, as a memorial of his exploit, he wrote in his alma- 
 nack, opposite to the day of the month, '-Motion cm solus 
 obstiti." 
 
 By such an extraordinary exhibition of courage, to which 
 he was driven by the instinct of self-preservation, he escaped 
 the peril which Jeffreys had planned for him, and he retained 
 the Great Seal till the King's death. 
 
 In the morning of Monday, the 2nd of February, 1685, he 
 was sent for to Whitehall, by a messenger an- 
 nouncing that his Majesty had had an apoplectic 
 seizure. According to the ancient custom and supposed law 
 when the sovereign is dangerously distempered, — the Privy 
 Council was immediately assembled; and the Lord Keeper 
 examined the King's physicians. h " Their discourse ran upon 
 indefinites — what they observed, their method intended, and 
 success hoped. He said to them, that these matters were little satisfac- 
 tory to the Council, unless they would declare, in the main, what they 
 judged of the King's case ; whether his Majesty was like to recover or 
 not ? But they would never be brought to that ; all lay in hopes."* 
 
 With short intervals the Council continued to sit day and 
 night. After a time, the physicians came into the council 
 chamber, smiling, and saying they had good news, for the 
 King had a fever. — Lord Keeper. " Gentlemen, what do you 
 mean? Can anything be worse?" — First Physician. "Now 
 we know what to do." — Lord Keeper. "What is that?" — 
 Second Physician. " To give him the cortex." The exhibition 
 of Jesuits' bark was sanctioned by the Council, but proved 
 fatal, — and being continued while the poor King grew weaker 
 and weaker, at the end of four days he expired. The Lord 
 Keeper and the Council were kept in ignorance of the fact, 
 that Chiffinch (accustomed to be employed on royal errands of 
 
 h Lord Coke lays down, that upon such au which is set down in writing, and that it is 
 
 occasion there ought to be a warrant by ad- not to be prepared by any apothecary, but 
 
 vice of the Privy Council, as in 32 H. 8, to by the surgeons named in the warrant.— 4 
 
 certain physicians and surgeons named.au- Inst. 251. These were the precautions of 
 
 thorising them to administer to the royal times when no eminent person died suddenly 
 
 patient " potiones, syrupos, confectiones, without suspicion of poison. Even Charles 
 
 laxitivas medicinas, clysteria, suppositoria, II. was at first said to have been cut off to 
 
 capitis purgea. capitis rasuram, fomenta- make way for a Popish successor, although, 
 
 tiones, embrocationes, emplastra,"' &c. ; still when the truth came unt, it appeared that he 
 
 that no medicine should be given to the King had himself been reconciled to the Roman 
 
 but by the advice of his Council ; that no Catholic church. 
 physic should be administered except that i Life, ii. 18*. 
 
32(3 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVII. 
 
 a different sort) had been sent for a Roman Catholic priest to 
 leceive his confession and administer the sacraments to him, 
 when he had declined the spiritual assistance of a Bishop of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 CHAPTER XCVII. 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD. 
 
 The Council was still sitting when the news was brought that 
 Feb. e, Charles was no more. After a short interval, James, 
 1685. who, leaving the death-bed of his brother, had de- 
 cently engaged in a devotional exercise in his own closet, 
 entered the apartment in which the Councillors were assembled, 
 and all kneeling down, they saluted him as their Sovereign. 
 When he had seated himself in the chair of state, and deli- 
 vered his declaration, which, with very gracious expressions, 
 smacked of the arbitrary principles so soon acted upon, Lord 
 (.uilford surrendered the Great Seal into his hands, and again 
 received it from him with the former title of Lord Keeper. k 
 J aines would, no doubt, have been much better pleased to have 
 transferred it to Jeffreys ; but it was his policy, at the com- 
 mencement of his reign, to make no change in the administra- 
 tion, and he desired all present to retain the several charges 
 which they held under his deceased brother, — assuring them 
 that he earnestly wished to imitate the good and gracious 
 sovereign whose loss they deplored. 
 
 Jeffreys, though continued a member of the Cabinet, was 
 probably a good deal disappointed, and he resolved to leave 
 nothing undone to mortify the man who stood between him and 
 his object, and to strike him down as soon as possible. 
 
 The first question upon which James consulted the Council 
 was respecting the levying of the duties of Customs and Excise, 
 v hich had been granted by parliament only during the life oi 
 tl e late King. The Lord Keeper intimating a clear conviction 
 1li. t parliament would continue the grant as from the demise 
 
 k On the 10th of Feb., before proceeding to the Rolls holding the book. — Or. Off. Min, 
 business, he took the oaths, standing in his fo 17. 
 place in the Court of Chancery the Master of 
 
A.D. 1685. MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. 327 
 
 of the Crown, recommended a Proclamation requiring that the 
 duties should be collected and paid into the Exchequer, and 
 that the officers should keep the product separate from other 
 revenues till the next session of parliament, in order to he 
 disposed of as his Majesty and the two Houses should think 
 fit. But the Lord Chief Justice represented this advice as low 
 and trimming, and he moved that " his Majesty should cause 
 his royal proclamation to issue, commanding all officers to 
 collect, and the subjects to pay, these duties for his Majesty's 
 use, as part of the royal revenue." The Lord Keeper ventured 
 humbly to ask his Majesty to consider whether such a pro- 
 clamation would be for his service, as it might give a handle 
 to his Majesty's enemies to say that his Majesty, at the very 
 entrance upon his government, levied money of the subject 
 without the authority of parliament. The Chief Justice's 
 advice was far more palatable. The proclamation which he 
 recommended was therefore ordered to be drawn up, and was 
 immediately issued. The Lord Keeper had the baseness to 
 affix the Great Seal to this proclamation, thinking as he did of 
 its expediency and legality. But rather than resign or be 
 turned out of his office, he was ready to concur in an)' outrage 
 on the constitution, or to submit to any personal indignity. 
 
 A parliament was found indispensable ; and, counting on 
 the very loyal disposition manifested by the nation, writs for 
 calling; one were issued, returnable the 19th of May. 
 
 As that day approached, the Lord Keeper began to write the 
 speech which he expected to deliver in the presence of the 
 King to the two Houses on their assembling. He. was much 
 pleased with this performance, on which he had taken un- 
 common pains, and when finished, he read it to his brother 
 and his officers, who highly applauded it. m But what was Iris 
 consternation when he was told that he was not to be allowed 
 to open his mouth upon the occasion ! n 
 
 Parliament meeting, the course was adopted which has been 
 followed ever since. Instead of having on the first day of the 
 se-sion. before the choice of a Speaker by the Commons, one 
 speech from the King, and another from the Lord Chancellor 
 or Lord Keeper, to explain the causes of the summons, — the 
 Commons being sent for by the Black Eod, the Lord Keeper 
 merelv desired them to retire to their own Chamber and choose 
 a Speaker, and to present him at an hour which was named, 
 
 m See the speech at full length. Life. ii. 192. There i; nothing in it very good oi 
 very bad. n Life. ii. 120. 
 
328 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVIL 
 
 for his Majesty's approbation. The Speaker being chosen and 
 approved of, and having demanded and obtained a recognition 
 of the privileges of the Commons, — on the following day the 
 King himself made a speech from the throne, and immediately 
 withdrew. 
 
 But this speech was not in modem fashion settled at the 
 Cabinet ; nor was it read the evening before at the Cockpit, or 
 to the chief supporters of the government in both Houses 
 at the dinner-table of the two leaders respectively ; nor was 
 it to be treated as the speech of the minister. " At least 
 the Lord Keeper had no hand in it ; for he was not so much as 
 consulted about either the matter or expressions the King 
 intended to use, as one might well judge by the unguarded 
 tenor of it." p 
 
 Yet he still was mean enough to cling to office, and to do 
 what he could for a government impatient to get rid of hirn. 
 He had been very active in the elections ; and by his influence 
 had procured the return of a good many zealous Church-and- 
 King members. " And to make the attendance easy to these 
 gentlemen, whose concerns were in the country, he took divers 
 of them to rack and manger in his family, where they were 
 entertained while the parliament sat." q But nothing which 
 he could do would mitigate the hostility of those who had 
 vowed his destruction. 
 
 At the meeting of parliament, Jeffreys was made a Peer, 1 
 that he might have the better opportunity to thwart and insult 
 the Lord Keeper; although there had been no previous 
 instance of raising a common-law judge to the peerage. 
 
 There were several appeals from decrees of the Lord 
 Keeper speedily brought to a hearing. "Jeffreys affected to 
 let fly at them, to have it thought that he was fitter to be 
 Chancellor." He attended, neglecting all other business ; and 
 during the argument, and in giving his opinion, took every 
 opportunity of disparaging the Lord Keeper's law, preparatory 
 to moving reversals. He was particularly outrageous in the 
 case of Howard v. the Duke of Norfolk, — being emboldened to 
 talk confidently on matters with which he was not much 
 acquainted, by having to rest on the reputation of Lord 
 Nottingham. That great equity lawj^er, contrary to the 
 opinion of the two Chief Justices and the Chief Baron, whom 
 he had called in to assist him, had held that an equitable 
 estate tail might be created in a term of years ; but his suc- 
 
 ° l.ife.ii. 191. P Ibid. 197. °< 4 Pari. Hist. 1349. T May 15, 1 -5. 
 
A.D. 1685. HIS DECREE INSULTINGLY REVERSED. 329 
 
 cessor had reversed his decree, and the decree of reversal was 
 now under appeal. "Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, by means 
 of some encouragement he had met with, took upon him the 
 part of slighting and insulting his Lordship on all occasions 
 that proffered. And here he had a rare opportunity ; for, in 
 his rude way of talking, and others of a party after him, he 
 battered the poor decree ; not without the most indecent 
 affronts to his Lordship that in such an assembly ever were 
 heard." The courtesy now prevailing between law Lords of 
 opposite political parties was not then known between col- 
 leagues sitting in the same cabinet ; and the poor Lord Keeper 
 was assailed by the coarsest vituperation, and the most cutting 
 ridicule. The second Earl of Nottingham, son of the Chan- 
 cellor, " who hated him because he had endeavoured to detract 
 from his father's memory," likewise took this opportunity to 
 attack him, and got together many instances of his ill- 
 administration of justice, and greatly exposed him. He was 
 not roused into retaliation or resistance ; and he contented 
 himself with a dry legal argument. The decree was reversed ; 
 and when he announced that the contents had it, he must have 
 felt as if he had been sounding his own death-knell. 5 The lay 
 Lords who voted could have known nothing of the merits of 
 such a nice question ; and must have been guided by favour or 
 enmity to the Lord Keeper or the Lord Chief Justice. 1 W hat 
 rendered the defeat and contemptuous usage the more galling 
 was the presence of the King; for James, like his brother, 
 attended in the House of Lords when any thing interesting 
 was coming on ; and walked about the House, or stood by the 
 fire, or sat in his chair of state or on the woolsack, as suited 
 his fancy." 
 
 "Having opened this scene," says Roger, " we are not to 
 expect other than opposition, contempt, and brutal usage, of 
 that Chief towards his Lordship while he lived." 
 
 There were few debates in the House of Lords during this 
 
 8 Burnet, ii. 351. It was believed that this attended almost every day during the whole 
 
 reversal " gave the crisis to the uneasiness of this session. The argument of Howard v. 
 
 and distraction of mind he was labouring Duke of Norfolk occupied two days. It was 
 
 under." decided, June 19, 1685, by a very full House, 
 
 1 It is insinuated, that some, to please the there being present, besides the King, eighteen 
 
 King, were influenced by the consideration bishops, and sixty-seven temporal peers, 
 
 that the appellant was a Roman Catholic, although there was no other business to be 
 
 while the respondent was a Protestant.— See done. There was no division on the motion 
 
 1 Vernon, 162. Life, ii. 93. to reverse, so that the Lord Keeper must 
 
 u By a reference to the Journals of the ha^e been almost entirely without support. 
 House of Lords, it appears that the King 
 
330 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVIl 
 
 short session ; but, even in going through the common forms 
 of the House, Jeffreys found opportunities publicly to testify 
 Ms contempt for the Lord Keeper ; and in the Cabinet, in 
 discussing the dispensation to be granted to Catholic officers 
 to serve in the army, and other subjects, he constantly laid 
 traps for him, with a view of either making him obnoxious to 
 the King, or odious to the public, — who considered him the 
 author of every declaration or dispensation which passed the 
 Great Seal. 
 
 Sunderland and other members of the cabinet openly joined 
 in this persecution, and " he was little less than derided by 
 them. Being soon to be laid aside, he was not relied upon in 
 any thing, but was truly a seal-keeper rather than a minister 
 of state, and kept on for despatch of the formularies, rather 
 than for advice or trust/' V> hy did he not resign? It is 
 difficult to understand the reasoning of his brother, who thus 
 accounts for his continuing to bear such insults : — " His Lord- 
 ship was so ill used at Court by the Earl of Sunderland, 
 Jeffreys, and their sub-sycophants, that I am persuaded if he 
 had had less pride of heart, he had been tempted to have 
 delivered up the Seal in full health. But he cared not to 
 gratify, by that, such disingenuous enemies. He cared not to 
 humour these barkers, or to quit his place before he might do 
 it with safety to his dignity. He intended to stay till the 
 King would bear him no longer, and then make it his Majesty's 
 own act to remove him." y 
 
 He felt keenly a sense of the insignificance and disfavour 
 into which he had fallen; and the anticipation of "the worse 
 remaining behind," when he was to be finally kicked out, 
 preyed upon his spirits. No longer was he ear-wigged by the 
 Lord Cravens, who worship a favourite ; no more did the 
 foreign ambassadors bow low when they thought that he 
 observed them : his levee was now deserted ; he seemed to 
 himself to discover a sneer on every countenance at White- 
 hall ; and he suspected that the bar, the officers of the Court, 
 and the by-standers in Chancery, looked at him as if they were 
 sure of his coming disgrace. To shade himself from observa- 
 tion, while he sat on the bench he held a large nosegay before 
 his face. 2 
 
 Dreadfully dejected, he lost his appetite and his strength. 
 He could not even get through the business of the Court ; and 
 remanets multiplying upon him kept him awake at night, 01 
 
 x Life, ii. 132. ? Ibid. ii. 222, 239. z Ibid. 133. 
 
A.D. 1685. HIS ILLNESS— RETIRES TO WROXTON. 331 
 
 haunted him in his sleep. He drooped so much, that for some 
 time he seemed quite heart-broken. At last, he had an attack 
 of fever, which confined him to his bed. 
 
 The coronation was approaching, and it was important that 
 ho should sit in the " Court of Claims." Having recovered a 
 little by the use of Jesuits' bark, he presided there, though 
 still extremely weak ; — and he walked at the coronation " as 
 a ghost with the visage of death upon him, such a sunk and 
 spiritless countenance he had." a 
 
 \Yhile he was in this wretched state, news arrived that the 
 Duke of Monmouth had landed in the West of England and 
 raised the standard of rebellion. The parliament, having 
 come to a number of loyal votes, having attainted the Duke, 
 and granted a supply, — was adjourned, that the members 
 might assist in preserving tranquillity in their several districts. 
 
 The Lord Keeper talked of resigning, and wrote a letter to 
 the Earl of Eochester, to ask leave to go into the country for 
 the recovery of his health, saying, " 1 have put myself into 
 the hands of a doctor, who assures me of a speedy cure by 
 entering into a course of physic." Leave was given, and he 
 proceeded to Wroxton, in Oxfordshire, the seat which belonged 
 to him in right of his wife. b 
 
 Here he languished while the battle of Sedgemoor was 
 fought, —Monmouth, after in vain trying to melt the heart of 
 his obdurate uncle, was executed on Tower Hill under his 
 parliamentary attainder, — and the inhuman Jeffreys, armed 
 with civil and military authority, set out on his celebrated 
 "campaign." Eoger North would make us believe that the 
 dying Guilford was horrified by the effusion of blood which 
 was now incarnadining the western counties by command of 
 the Lord General Chief Justice, and that he actually in- 
 terposed to stay it : — " Upon the news returned of his violent 
 proceedings, his Lordship saw the King would be a great suf- 
 ferer thereby, and went directly to the King, and moved him 
 to put a stop to the fury, winch was in no respect for his 
 service ; but in many respects for the contrary. Eor though 
 the executions were by law just, yet never were the deluded 
 people all capitally punished ; and it would be accounted a 
 
 a Life, ii. 205. mark of honour to their families upon record. 
 
 b Roger praises him much for the humility But his Lordship, thinking it mere vanity, 
 
 which he now exhibited: " It had been usual ordered none to bear teste apud Wroxton. but 
 
 heretofore for all writs to bear teste where apud Westmonasterium only."— Life of Lata 
 
 the Lord Keeper resided, though the King Keeper, vol. ii. 144. 
 was not tnere ; which was looked upon as a 
 
332 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XC VII. 
 
 carnage and not law or justice ; and thereupon orders went to 
 mitigate the proceeding. I am sure of his Lordship's interces- 
 sion to the King on this occasion, being told it at the very 
 time by himself." It is painful to doubt the supposed exertion 
 of mercy and firmness by the Lord Keeper ; but an attention 
 to dates, of which this biographer is always so inconceiv- 
 ably negligent, shows the story to be impossible. Jeffreys 
 did not open his campaign by the slaughter of the Lady Lisle, 
 at Winchester, till the 27th of August, and he carried it on 
 with increased cruelty till the very end of September. On 
 the oth of September died Lord Keeper Guilford, at Wroxton, 
 after having been for some weeks in a state of such debility 
 and exhaustion, that, able only to attend to his spiritual con- 
 cerns, he thought no more of domestic treason or foreign levy 
 than if he had already slept in the grave. d For a short time 
 after his arrival there, he rallied, by the use of mineral waters, 
 but he soon had a relapse, and he could with difficulty sign his 
 will. He was peevish and fretful during his sickness, but 
 calmlv met his end. " He advised his friends not to mourn 
 for him, yet commended an old maid-servant for her good will 
 that said. As long as there is life there is hope. At length, having 
 strove a little to rise, he said, It will not do, — and then, with 
 patience and resignation, lay down for good and all, and 
 expired." e 
 
 He was buried in Wroxton Church, in a vault belonging 
 to his wife's family, the Earls of Down. There is no other 
 monument to him than a large marble slab in the middle 
 of the floor of the chancel, bearing the following inscrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 " Here lyeth the body of the Eight Hon blf Francis Lord Guilford, 
 Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England. 
 He was borne the 22d of October, 1637, and departed this life the 5 th of 
 September, in the year of our Lord 1685." 
 
 c 11 St. Tr. 297 et seq. 15th of July, a^,d the Lord Keeper and the 
 
 d Roger (I will not say from any bad mo- King uever could have met afterwards. — See 
 
 tive) does not mention the day of his brother's Ralph, i. 893; 11 St, Tr. 303. — Note to 1st 
 
 death ; but this is placed beyond all doubt Edition. 
 
 by the entry on the record respecting the Mr. Macaulay (Hist., vol. i. p. 638) supposes 
 
 appointment of his successor. — Or. Off. Min. the alleged remonstrance to have taken place 
 
 Boo':, 121 This is like a story he tells, before Guilford retired from London; but 
 
 equally incredible and impossible, of a cau- this seems impossible, for the battle of Sedge- 
 
 tion given by the Lord Keeper in an inter- moor was fought while he was residiug at 
 
 view with the King, after Monmouth's exe- Wroxton. — Note to 4th Edition. 
 
 cution, to beware of the Prince of Orange. — e Life, ii. 215. 
 Life, ii. 227. Monmouth was executed on the 
 
Cjiap. XCVII. HIS CHARACTER. 333 
 
 " He was a crafty and designing man," says Bishop Burnet. 
 "He had no mind to part with the Great Seal, and yet he 
 saw he could not hold it without an entire compliance with 
 the pleasure of the Court. Nothing but his successor made 
 him he remembered with regret. He had not the virtues of 
 his predecessor; but he had parts far beyond him. They 
 were turned to craft ; so that whereas the former (Lord 
 Nottingham) seemed to mean well even when he did ill, this 
 man was believed to mean ill even when he did well/' f I 
 accede to this character, with the exception of the estimate of 
 North's "parts," which I think are greatly overrated. He 
 was sharp and shrewd, but of no imagination, of no depth, of 
 no grasp of intellect, — any more than generosity of sentiment. 
 Cunning, industry, and opportunity may make such a man 
 at any time. A Nottingham does not arise above once in a 
 century. 
 
 Guilford had as much law as he could contain, but he was 
 incapable of taking an enlarged and commanding view of 
 any subject. The best specimen of his juridical powers is his 
 judgment, when Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in the 
 great case of Soames v. Barnardiston, in which it was decided 
 that an action at common law does not lie against a Sheriff for 
 the false return of a member of parliament, as the validity 
 of the return ought to be determined by the House of Com- 
 mons^ In equity, he did nothing to rear up the system of 
 which the foundations had been so admirably laid by his pre- 
 decessor. His industry was commendable ; and I think he 
 may be fairly acquitted of corruption, notwithstanding his in- 
 discreet acceptance of a present of 1000/. from the Six Clerks, 
 when they had a dispute with the Sixty, on which he was to 
 adjudicate. 
 
 He labours under the imputation of once having expressed 
 a constitutional sentiment, " that his Majesty's defensive wea- 
 pons were his guards, and his offensive weapons the laics, and 
 that rebels were to be overcome by opposing force to force, 
 but to he punished only by law," — which from its rarity caused 
 a great sensation. But where he was not under the appre- 
 hension of personal responsibility, there was nothing which he 
 would not say or do to exalt the prerogative and to please 
 his patrons. I shall add only one instance. Sir Thomas 
 
 f 0. T. ii. 185, 357. Lords after the Revolution.— See Lord Cam.} 
 
 * 6 St. Tr. 1092, 1098. His judgment was bell's Speeches, 277. 
 confirmed on a writ of error by the House of 
 
834 LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVII. 
 
 Armstrong was outlawed for high treason while beyond the 
 seas unless he surrendered within a yeai . Being sent over a 
 prisoner from Holland within a year, he insisted that he wag 
 entitled to a writ of error to reverse the outlawry and to be 
 admitted to make his defence ; but the Lord Keeper refused 
 him his writ of error, first, on the pretence that there was no 
 fiat for it by the Attorney-General, and then, that he had no 
 right to reverse his outlawry, as he was present by compulsion. 
 Thus the unhappy victim was sent to instant execution with- 
 out trial. 11 
 
 So zealous a Conservative was Guilford, that "he thought 
 the taking away of the tenures " (». e. the abolition of ward- 
 ship and the other oppressive feudal burdens introduced at 
 the Conquest) " a desperate wound to the liberties of the 
 people." 
 
 The Court wags made great sport of him, the Earl of Sun- 
 derland taking the lead, and giving out the signal, while 
 Jeffreys was always ready to join in the laugh. I may offer 
 as an example "the story of the Rhinoceros." My Lord 
 Keeper went one day into the City, accompanied by his brother 
 Sir Dudley, to see a Ehinoceros of enormous size lately im- 
 ported, and about to be exhibited as a show. 1 Next morning 
 at Whitehall, a rumour was industriously spread, that the 
 Lord Keeper had been riding on the Ehinoceros, " and soon 
 after dinner some Lords and others came to his Lordship to 
 know the truth from himself ; for the setters of the lie affirmed 
 it positively, as of their own knowledge. That did not give 
 his Lordship much disturbance, for he expected no better from 
 his adversaries. But that his friends, intelligent persons, who 
 must know him to be far from guilty of any childish levity, 
 should believe it, was what roiled him extremely, and much 
 more when they had the face to come to him to know if it 
 were true. So it passed ; and the Earl of Sunderland, with 
 Jeffreys and others of that crew, never blushed at the lie of 
 their own making, but valued themselves upon it as a very 
 good jest." k 
 
 To try how far his compliance with the humours of the 
 
 h 10 St. Tr. 106. k Life, ii. 167. The marginal note to this 
 
 i Evelyn tells us that this was the first anecdote by Roger is amusing: — "The foolish. 
 
 Rhinoceros ever introduced into England, and lie of the Rhinoceros. His Lordship much 
 
 that it sold for 2000L Shakspeare may have roiled thereat." The word "roiled" was 
 
 Been " the Hyrcan Tiger," but he could only transported to the American plantations, 
 
 have heard, or read, or seen a picture of "the where it may still be met with. See the 
 
 armed Rhinoceros." Clockm^Jar. 
 
Chap, xcvii. his CHARACTER. 335 
 
 Court would go, they next persuaded his own brother-in-law 
 (that he might not suspect the hoax) to wait upon him, and in 
 strict confidence, and with great seriousness, to advise him tc 
 keep a mistress, ' ' otherwise he would lose all his interest with 
 the King ; for it was well understood that he was ill looked 
 upon for want of doing so, because he seemed continually 
 to reprehend them by not falling in with the general custom ; 
 and the messenger added, that if his Lordship pleased he would 
 help him to one." He declined the offer, — with much polite- 
 ness, however, lest he should give offence. But with his fami- 
 liar friends " he made wonderfully merry with this state policy, 
 especially the procuring part, and said, that if he were to entertain 
 a madam, it should be one of his own choosing, and not one of their 
 stale trumpery." m 
 
 Although he never aimed at oratory, it is said that he 
 meditated a " History of his own Times."' He might have 
 transmitted to us many curious anecdotes, but the performance 
 must have been without literary merit ; for some of his notes 
 which he had written as materials are in the most wretched 
 style, and show that he was unacquainted with the first prin- 
 ciples of English composition, and even with the commorj 
 rules of gTammar. He did publish two or three short tracts 
 " on Music " and other subjects, — which were soon forgotten. 
 He was well versed in music, conversed with Sir Peter Lely 
 about painting, speculated with natural philosophers on the 
 use of the bladder of fishes, and learned several of the conti- 
 nental languages ; but he seems never to have looked into a 
 classical writer after he left college, and to have had the same 
 taste for the belles lettres as his brother Eoger, who, placing 
 them all in the same category, talks with equal contempt of 
 "departed quacks, poets, and almanack makers."" Although 
 his two immediate predecessors were libelled and lauded by 
 popular verses in the mouths of every one, I can find no 
 allusion in any fine writer either of the Court or Country 
 party to North ; and it may be doubtful whether he knew 
 anything of the works of Butler, of Dryden, of Waller, or of 
 Cowley, beyond the snatches of them he may have heard 
 rejDeated in the merry circle at Whitehall. 
 
 He lived very hospitably, — receiving those who retailed the 
 gossip of the day in his house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields, — then the fashionable quarter of the town for the 
 great nobility as well as for eminent lawyers. He had a large 
 
 ra Life ii. 239. n Preface, vi 
 
3'ib LORD KEEPER GUILFORD. Chap. XCVI1. 
 
 range of stables near his honse, nnder the superintendence of 
 his " Master of the Horse," an old Cavalier officer who could 
 smoke tobacco and taste claret, though not very skilful or 
 careful in his office. There were various tables in the house 
 daily, — from that of the Major Domo, or the "prefect of eat- 
 ing," down to that of the inferior seivants, who "ate like 
 harpies at the catch, and, to say truth, most scandalously.''' 
 The nobility and chief gentry coming to London frequently 
 dined with him. The dinner was at a very early hour, and did 
 not last long. " After a solemn service of tea in a with- 
 dra wing-room, the company usually left him." ° He had a 
 Court-room fitted up on the ground-floor, which he then 
 entered, — and there he continued hearing causes and excep 
 tions, sometimes to what was considered a late hour. About 
 eight o'clock came supper, which he took with a few private 
 friends, and relished as the most agreeable and refreshing meal 
 of the day. p 
 
 In the vacations, when he could be spared from London, he 
 retired to his seat at Wroxton. For some years he likewise 
 rented a villa at Hammersmith, but this he gave up soon after 
 his wife's death. 
 
 He had the misfortune to lose her after they had been 
 married only a few years. She seems to have been a veiy 
 amiable person. She found out when her husband had any 
 trouble upon his spirits, and she would say, " Come, Sir Francis, 
 (as she always styled him,) you shall not think ; we must talk and 
 be merry, and you shall not look on the fire as you do. 1 know some- 
 thing troubles you ; and I will not have it so." q He would never 
 marry again, which in his last illness he repen f ed, for " he 
 fancied that in the night human heat was friendly." 
 
 He was extremely amiable in all the relations of domestic 
 life. Nothing can be more touching than the account we have 
 of the warm and steady affection subsisting between him and 
 his brother, who survived to be his biographer. 
 
 The Lord Keeper was a little but handsome man. and is said 
 to have had "an ingenuous aspect," his motto being "II 
 volto sciolto, i pensieri stretti." 
 
 He left behind him Francis, his son and heir, the second 
 Baron Guilford, father of Francis, the third Baron Guilford, 
 on whom descended the Barony of North, by failure of the 
 elder branch of the family, and who, in 1752, was created 
 Earl of Guilford, and was the father of Lord North, the prime 
 
 ° Life»ii. 167. P Ibid. 195-210. 1 Ibid. 316. 
 
Chap. XCVII. HIS DESCENDANTS. 337 
 
 minister, so celebrated for his polished orator)-, his refined wit, 
 and amiable manners. His daughter, Lady Charlotte Lindsey, 
 still survives, the grace and ornament of her sex, in the reign 
 of Queen Victoria/ 
 
 The title of Guilford is now enjoyed by Francis, the sixth 
 Earl. 8 
 
 When we estimate what the Lord Keeper achieved, we 
 should bear in mind that he died at forty-eight, an age consi- 
 derably more advanced than that reached by his immediate 
 successor ; yet under that at which other Lord Chancellors 
 and Lord Keepers began to look for promotion. Although I 
 have brought liim into existence three years sooner than 
 former biographers, — he was in truth Solicitor-General at 
 thirty-four, Attorney- General at fturty-seven, Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas at thirty-eight, and Lord Keeper and a Peer at 
 forty-Jive. It is probably well for his memory that his career 
 was not prolonged. He might have made a respectable Judge 
 when the constitution was settled ; but he was wholly unfit for 
 the times in which he lived. 
 
 I ought not to conclude this memoir without acknow- 
 ledging my obligations to " Roger North's Life of the Lord 
 Keeper;" which, like " Boswell's Life of Johnson," interests 
 us highly, without giving us a very exalted notion of the 
 author. Notwithstanding its extravagant praise of the hero 
 of the tale, its inaccuracies, and its want of method, it is a 
 most valuable piece of biography, and with Roger's Lives of 
 his brothers "Dudley and John," and his " Examen," it 
 ought to be studied by every one who wishes to understand the 
 history and the manners of the reign of Charles II. 
 
 r Written in 1844. 8 Grandeur of the Law, p. 64. 
 
 VOL. IV 
 
338 . LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVIII- 
 
 CHAPTEB XCVIII. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS 8 FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HE WAS 
 APPOINTED RECORDER OF LONDON. 
 
 It is hardly known to the multitude that this infamous person 
 ever held the Great Seal of England ; as, from the almost ex- 
 clusive recollection of his presiding on criminal trials, he has 
 been execrated under the designation of k * Judge Jeffreys," — 
 which is as familiar in our mouths as household words. Yet 
 was he Chancellor a considerably longer time than Chief Jus- 
 tice, — and in the former capacity, as well as the latter, he did 
 many things to astonish and horrify mankind. 
 
 He has been so much abused, that 1 began my critical 
 examination of his history in the hope and belief that I 
 should find that his misdeeds had been exaggerated, and that 
 1 might be able to rescue his memory from some portion of 
 the obloquy under which it labours ; but I am sorry to say, 
 that, in my matured opinion, although he appears to have 
 been a man of high talents, of singularly agreeable manners, 
 and entirely free from hypocrisy, his cruelty and his political 
 profligacy have not been sufficiently exposed or reprobated ; 
 and that he was not redeemed from his vices by one single 
 solid virtue. 
 
 George Jeffreys was a younger son of John Jeffreys, Esq., of 
 Acton, near Wrexham, in Denbighshire, a gentleman of a 
 respectable Welsh family, and of small fortune. His mother 
 was a daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland, Knight, of the County 
 Palatine of Lancaster. Never was child so unlike parents ; for 
 they were both quiet, sedate, thrifty, unambitious persons, who 
 aspired not higher than to be well reputed in the parish in 
 which they lived, and decently to rear their numerous off- 
 spring. Some imputed to the father a niggardly and covetous 
 disposition ; but he appears only to have exercised a becoming 
 
 8 The name is spelt no fewer than eight himself spelt it differently »t different times 
 
 different ways : — " Jeffries," " Jefferies," of his life ; but the last spelling is toat which 
 
 •'Tefferys, " Jeffereys," " Jefferyes," " Jef- is found in his patent of peerage, and which 
 
 .rys," "Jatfrps." and "Jeffreys," and the he always used afterwards. 
 
A.D. 1648-59. HIS BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 339 
 
 economy, and to have lived at home with his consort in peace 
 and happiness, till he was made more anxious than pleased by 
 the irregular advancement of his boy George It is said he had 
 an early presentiment that this son would come to a violent 
 end ; and was particularly desirous that he should be brought 
 up to some steady trade, in which he might be secured from 
 temptation and peril. The old gentleman lived till he heard, 
 after the landing of the Prince of Orange, of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor being taken up at Wapping disguised as a sailor, being 
 assaulted by the mob, being carried before the Lord Mayor, 
 and dying miserably in the Tower of London.' 
 
 He, of whom such tales were to be told, was born in his fa- 
 ther's lowly dwelling at Acton in the year 1648. u He 
 showed, from early infancy, the lively parts, the active 
 temperament, the outward good humour, and the overbearing 
 disposition which distinguished him through life. He ac- 
 quired an ascendency among his companions in his native 
 village by coaxing some and intimidating others, and making 
 those most opposed to each other believe that he favoured 
 both. At marbles and leap-frog he was known to take undue 
 advantages ; and, nevertheless, he contrived, notwithstanding- 
 secret murmurs, to be acknowledged as " Master of the 
 Revels." 
 
 While still very young he was put to the free school at the 
 town of Shrewsbury, which was then considered a 
 sort of metropolis for North Wales. Here he conti- 
 nued for two or three years : but we have no account how he 
 demeaned himself. At the end of this time his father, 
 though resolved to bind him apprentice to a shop- 
 keeper in Wales, sent him for a short time to St. Paul's 
 School, in the City of London. The sight of the metropolis 
 
 » Pennant saw a likeness of this old gentle- not improbable that, in spite of the Chan- 
 man at Acton House, taken in 1690, in the cellor's great horror of dissenters, he may 
 82nd year of his age.— See Pennant's Tour in have been baptized by " a dissenting teacher. 
 Wales, i. 296. — 1st Edition. 
 
 u This is generally given as the year of his This conjecture is strongly confirmed by a 
 
 birth, but I have in vain tried to have it passage which I have since found in a Life by 
 
 authenticated. There is no entry of his bap- Matthew Henry, the Commentator on the 
 
 tism, nor of the baptism of his brothers, in Bible, of his father Philip Henry, a famous 
 
 the register of Wrexham, the parish in Presbyterian minister, to the effect that Judge 
 
 which he was born, nor in the adjoining parish Jeffreys, notwithstanding his harsh character, 
 
 of Gresford, in which part of the family pro- always, while he was Chief Justice of Chester, 
 
 perty lies. I have had accurate searches refused to put the Fine Mote Act in force 
 
 made in these registers by the kindness of against Philip Henri/, because this pious 
 
 my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Atcherly, divine had been his mother's friend and 
 
 who has estates in th" neighbourhood. It is pastor— 4th Edition. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVilL 
 
 had a most extraordinary effect upon the mind of this ardent 
 youth, and exceedingly disgusted him with the notion of 
 returning into Denbighshire, to pass his life in a small pro- 
 vincial town as a mercer. On the first Sunday in every 
 term he saw the Judges and the Serjeants come in grand 
 procession to St. Paul's Cathedral, and afterwards go to dine 
 with the Lord Mayor, — appearing little inferior to this great 
 Sovereign of the City in power and splendour. He heard that 
 some of them had been poor boys like himself, who had 
 pushed themselves on without fortune or friends ; and though 
 he was not so presumptuous as to hope, like another Whitting- 
 ton, to rise to be Lord Mayor, he was resolved that he would 
 be Lord Chief Justice or Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Now it was that he acquired whatever scholarship he ever 
 possessed. The Master of St. Paul's School, at this time, was 
 Samuel Cromleholme, or Crumlum, who, for his skill in lan- 
 guages, obtained the name of HoXvyXiorroc, and under him 
 Jeffreys applied with considerable diligence to Greek and 
 Latin, though occasionally flogged for idleness and insolence. 
 He at last ventured to disclose his scheme of becoming a great 
 lawyer to his father, who violently opposed it, as wild and 
 romantic and impossible, — and who inwardly dreaded that, 
 from involving him in want and distress, it might lead to 
 some fatal catastrophe. He wrote back to his son, pointing 
 out the inability of the family to give him a L^niversity edu- 
 cation, or to maintain him at the Inns of Court till he should 
 have a chance of getting into practice, — his utter want of 
 connections in London, — and the hopelessness of his entering 
 into a contest in an overstocked profession with so many who 
 had the advantage of superior education, wealth, and patron- 
 age. Although the aspirant professed himself unconvinced 
 by these arguments, and still tried to show the certainty of his 
 success at the bar,— he must have stood a crop-eared apprentice 
 behind a counter in Denbigh, Euthyn, or Flint, if it had not 
 been for his maternal grandmother, who was pleased to see the 
 blood of the Irelands break out, and who, having a small join- 
 ture, offered to contribute a part of it for his support. The Uni- 
 versity was still beyond their means ; but it was thought this 
 might be better dispensed with if he should be for some time at 
 one of our great schools of royal foundation,— where he might 
 form acquaintances afterwards to be useful to him. The father 
 reluctantly consented, in the hope that his son would soon 
 return to his sober senses, and that the project would be aban- 
 
A.D. 1661-63. AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL. 341 
 
 doned with the general concurrence of the family. Meanwhile 
 young George was transferred to Westminster School, then 
 under the rule of the celebrated Busby. 
 
 There is reason to fear that the zeal for improvement which 
 he had exhibited at St. Paul's soon left him, and that 
 he here began to acquire those habits of intemperance 
 which afterwards proved so fatal to him. His father hearing 
 of these had all his fears revived, and when the boy was at 
 Acton during the holy days, again tried in vain to induce him 
 to become a tradesman. But finding all dissuasions unavail- 
 ing, the old gentleman withdrew his opposition, giving him a 
 gentle pat on the back, accompanied by these words, — " Ah, 
 George, George, I fear thou wilt die with thy shoes and 
 stockings on ! " 
 
 Yet the wayward youth while at Westminster had fits of ap- 
 plication, and carried away from thence a sufficient stock of 
 learning to prevent him from appealing in after-life grossly 
 deficient when any question of grammar arose. He was fond 
 of reminding the world of the great master under whom he 
 had studied. On the trial before him as Chief Justice, in the 
 year 1684, of Kosewell, the dissenting minister, for high treason 
 in a sermon delivered from the pulpit, an objection was taken 
 to the sufficiency of the indictment, in which it was alleged 
 that the defendant had said, " X\e have had two wicked kings 
 together, who have permitted Popery to enter in under their 
 noses, whom we can resemble to no other person but to most 
 wicked Jeroboam ; and if they would stand to their principles, 
 he did not fear but they would overcome their enemies, as in 
 former times with rams' horns, broken platters, and a stone in 
 a sling." The counsel insisting that it was not sufficiently 
 averred who were thus to overturn the government by physical 
 force, the Chief Justice, who, on account of a suggestion from 
 the government, wished in this case to procure an A . p . i^i— 
 acquittal, favoured the objection, and said, " I think 1663 - 
 it must be taken to be an entire speech, and you lay it in the 
 indictment to be so, and then the relative must go to the last 
 antecedent, or else Dr. Busby (that so long ruled in AYest- 
 minster School) taught me quite wrong, and who had tried 
 most of the grammars extant, and used to lay down, as a 
 positive rale of grammar, that the relative must refer to the lad 
 antecedent." x 
 
 x 10 St. TV. 299.— The bitter spite always explained by this trial. As junior counsel 
 shown against Jeffreys by Roger North is for the Crown he bad drawn ihe indictment, 
 
342 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVIII. 
 
 His confidence in his own powers was so great, that, without 
 conforming to ordinary rules, he expected to overcome every 
 obstacle. Being now in the neighbourhood of Westminster 
 Hall, his ambition to be a great lawyer was inflamed by seeing 
 the grand processions on the first day of term, and by occasion- 
 ally peeping into the Courts, when an important trial was going 
 forward. He must have been much struck by the grandeur 
 of the Earl of Clarendon, who then presided in the Court of 
 Chancery. In his waking moments he could scarcely have 
 hoped to succeed him, but such visions passed before his imagi- 
 nation, and when he was actually Lord Chancellor he used to 
 relate that, while a boy at Westminster School, he had a dream, 
 in which a Gipsy read his fortune, foretelling, " that he should 
 be the chief scholar there, and should afterwards enrich him- 
 self by study and industry, and that he chould come to be the 
 second man in the kingdom, but, in conclusion, should fall into 
 disgrace and misery." 
 
 He was now sixteen, an age after which it was not usual to 
 remain at school in those days. A family council was called 
 at Acton, and as George still sanguinely adhered to the Law, 
 it was settled that, the University being quite beyond their 
 reach, lie should immediately be entered at an Inn of Court ; 
 that, to support him there, his grandmother should allow him 
 forty pounds a year, and that his father should add ten pounds 
 a year for decent clothing. 7 The aid which has since been 
 found available to poor students, from literary labour, and of 
 which, when a student at Lincoln's Inn, I availed myself, was 
 then unknown ; so that this was the whole revenue he could 
 calculate upon till it should be augmented by the distant and 
 uncertain accession of clients and fees. 
 
 However, he believed in his dream, and, on the 1 9th of May, 
 1663, to his great joy, he was admitted a member of the Inner 
 Temple. 2 He got a small and gloomy chamber, in which, with 
 much energy, he began his legal studies. He not only had a 
 natural boldness ( f eloquence, but an excellent head for law. 
 
 and was eager to defend it against the inti- scarce seen." Tbe Court look time to con- 
 
 mation of the opinion of the Bench.— Mr. sider, and the prisoner was pardoned. 
 
 North. " Will your Lordship please to spare y Though so small, it was not much less 
 
 me a word ? " — L. C. J. " Ay, sir, let every than that of Lord Keeper Guilford, the son 
 
 man be heard, in God"s name." Roger makes of a peer, ante, p. 284. 
 
 some observations, which I must acknow- z " Jelferies (Gs.) Georgius Jcfferies de 
 ledge are rather foolish, and then the C. J. thus Acton in Comitatu Denbigh generosus ad- 
 puts him down : — " Mr. North, the argument missus est in banc Societatem, &c." May 19, 
 turn- both ways upon that. It is so loose a 1663. Admission Boo'; Inner Temple, folio 
 bung-together indictment, as truly I have 91*. 
 
A.D. 1666. HIS RESIDENCE IN THE INNER TEMPLE. 343 
 
 With steadiness of application lie would have greatly excelled 
 Lord Keeper Guilford, and in the mastery of this science 
 would have rivalled Lord Hale and Lord Nottingham. But he 
 could not long resist the temptations of bad company. Having 
 laid in a very slender stock for a Counsel or a Judge, he for- 
 sook Littleton and Plowden, a "moots and readings," for the 
 tavern, where was his chief delight. He seems to have escaped 
 the ruinous and irreclaimable vice of gaming, but to have fallen 
 into all others to which reckless Templars were prone. Never- 
 theless, he had ever a keen eye to his own interest ; and in 
 these scenes of dissipation he assiduously cultivated the 
 acquaintance of young attorneys and their clerks, who might af- 
 terwards be useful to him. He could not, like Mr. Surrebutter 
 in the Pleader's Guide, give them rich treats at his cham- 
 bers, b but, when they met over a bowl of punch at the Devil 
 tavern, or some worse place, he charmed them with songs and 
 jokes, and took care to bring out before them, opportunely, any 
 scrap of law which he had picked up, to impress them with the 
 notion that, when he put on his gown and applied to business, 
 he should be able to win all the causes in which he might be 
 retained. He was exceedingly popular, and he had many in- 
 vitations to dinner : which, to make his way in the world, he 
 thought it better to accept, than to waste his time over the 
 midnight oil. in acquiring knowledge which it might never be 
 known that he possessed. 
 
 After the first fervour of loyalty which burst out at the 
 Restoration had passed away, a malecontent party ad 
 was formed, which gradually gained strength. In 
 this most of the aspiring young lawyers, not actually em- 
 ployed by the government, were ranged,- — finding it politic 
 to begin in "the sedition line," that their value might be 
 
 a "He scorned Littleton and Plowden loo ; Bj love of food and contest led, 
 
 With mouldy authors he'd have nought Would haunt the spot where once they fed." 
 
 to do." PI- Guide, part i. lect. vii. 
 
 Jeffreys' Elegy on Old Parr. c Tbis expression is said to have been in- 
 
 b This great Nisi Prius leader, in narrating vented by that famous Stenographer, cele- 
 
 bis rise, thus describes his guests:— brated in the " Pleader's Guide" :— 
 
 " To wit, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow, " Sit behind some fat attorney, 
 
 Item, Tom Thornbaek, Shark, and Co.. And make a friend of Mr - ^urney ; 
 
 Attorneys all as keen and staunch — the father of that very worthy man, tue 
 
 As e'er devour'd a client's hanneh. late Mr. Baron Gurney. The old gentleman 
 
 Xor did I not their clerks invite, being asked about the year 1T92i ^- hen state 
 
 To taste said venison hash d at mght ; Trf SQ rff how hig Joh 
 
 lor well I knew that hopeful fry * 
 
 My rising merits would descry ; S ettm ? on at tbe bar » re P lied - Remarkably 
 
 The same litigious course pursue, well ; he has taken to the sedition line, and I 
 
 And when to tish of prey they grew, hope he will make his fortune in it." 
 
344 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVI11. 
 
 better appreciated by the Court, and a better price might be 
 bid for them. d From such reasoning, or perhaps from acci- 
 dental circumstances, Jeffreys associated himself with the 
 popular leaders, and in the h ,ur of revelry would drink on 
 his knees any toasts to " the good old cause," and to " the im- 
 mortal memory of old Noll.':' The Calves' Head Club had 
 not yet been established, or he probably would not have scru- 
 pled to belong to it, and to have drunk with devotion the two 
 standing toasts of the brethren, — to " the man in the mask," 
 and " the man that would do it without a mask." 
 
 He was often put to great shifts from the embarrassed state 
 of his finances, the 10/. for " decent clothing " for a year 
 being expended in a single suit of cut velvet, and his grand- 
 mother's 40/. being insufficient to pay his tavern bills. But 
 he displayed much address in obtaining prolonged and in- 
 creased credit from his tradesmen. He borrowed adroitly ; 
 and it is said that such an impression was made by his open- 
 ing talents, that several wealthy men on the popular side 
 voluntarily made him presents of money in the hope of the 
 important services they were speedily to receive from his 
 support. 
 
 It is very much to be regretted that we have not from a 
 Roger North more minute information with respect to the 
 manner in which his character was formed, and his abilities 
 were cultivated. He seems to have been a most precocious 
 young man. While still in his twentieth year, he was not 
 only familiarly acquainted with the town, and completely a 
 man of the world, exciting confident expectations of great 
 future eminence, but he was already received among veteran 
 statesmen as a member of an important party in the state 
 consulted as to their movements, and regarded as their future 
 leader. 
 
 We are now actually to see him on the stage of public 
 life. It has been constantly asserted, that he made his en- 
 trance most irregularly into the profession of the law. A 
 story was propagated soon after his death, and has been re- 
 peated ever since, that he was never called to the bar, and 
 that for lack of councillors, — who are all supposed to have been 
 killed or frightened away by the plague, — at the Kingston 
 assizes in 1666, being then a lad of eighteen, he boldly put 
 on a bombazeen gown, walked into Court as a banister, was 
 
 <i Sir Francis North valued him3elf much on having been an exception to this rule, and 
 always loyal. 
 
A.D. 1666-68. CALLED TO THE BAR. 345 
 
 intrusted with briefs by the attorneys, won verdicts, and con- 
 tinued to practise with applause ever after. But it bears such 
 improbabilities on the face of it, that hardly any evidence 
 could support it. The plague of 1666 did not rage any where 
 out of London so as to interfere with the common affairs of 
 life. It must have been fatal, indeed, before it would induce 
 the members of the circuit established in business, or candi- 
 dates for it, to give up their profits and their position to ad- 
 venturous rivals. 6 In such a state of things neither judge, 
 nor jury, nor witnesses, nor attorneys, nor parties, would have 
 attended. If there had been any presumptuous stripling so 
 absurd as to make the supposed attempt, he could not have 
 inspired confidence into any one. We must farther bear in 
 mind that the regulations, by which no person was allowed to 
 practise as a barrister without being called to the bar by one 
 of the four Inns of Court, were then quite as strict and as 
 rigidly enforced as they now are. If by any unaccountable 
 accident the sham barrister had been permitted to plead a 
 cause in the country, he would have been silenced on his re- 
 turn to London, and if contumacious, he would have been 
 disgracefully expelled from the Society whose discipline he 
 had defied. The story rests on vague rumour, not corrobo- 
 rated by any name, circumstance, or authority. But at once 
 to demolish it, I find upon a reference to the books of the 
 Inner Temple, which 1 have been kindly permitted to ex- 
 amine, that the same George Jeffreys admitted on the 19th of 
 March, 1663, — after keeping all his terms, and doing all his 
 exercises, was regularly called to the bar on the 22nd day of 
 November, 1668, — having been on the books of the Society 
 five years and six months,— and the requisite period of pro- 
 bation having been previously, by a general regulation, re- 
 duced from seven to the present period of five years. I 
 cannot offer direct proof that he did not practice as a barrister 
 in Westminster Hall in the intermediate time ; but 
 when I show the exact date of his actual call, surely 
 the inevitable inference is, that till then he continued in statu 
 vupillari as a student of law. 
 
 e At the Gloucester summer assizes, 1832, number, only one man fled the field. There 
 
 the Asiatic cholera was raging in that city ; were many deaths daily in Leather Bottle 
 
 tar barrels were burnt all day in the streets, Lane, close by my lodgings, but I thought 
 
 — no one entered the county hall except on that I, the leader of the circuit, was bound 
 
 some sort of compulsion, and every one who to remain at my post, and to give a chanca 
 
 entered held in his hard some charm against to my juniors, 
 the infection Yet of a bar above fifty in 
 
340 LORD CHANCEJ LOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVIII. 
 
 Although he does not appear ever to have been chosen 
 " Reader " or " Treasurer " of the Society, yet in the year 1678, 
 on being elected Recorder of London, he was made a Bencher,' 
 and he continued to be so till he took the coif, when he neces- 
 sarily left it for Serjeants' Inn. 
 
 During his early career, he was involved in difficulties, 
 „„„ which could only have been overcome by uncommon 
 
 a.d. 1667. t» a i t i i 
 
 energy, rressed by creditors, and at a loss to pro- 
 vide for the day that was passing over him, he had burdened 
 himself with the expenses of a family. But this arose out of 
 a speculation, which, in the first instance, was very prudent. 
 Being a handsome young fellow, and capable of making him- 
 self acceptable to modest women, — notwithstanding the bad 
 company which he kept, he resolved to repair bis fortunes 
 by marrying an heiress ; and he fixed upon the daughter of a 
 country gentleman of large possessions, who, on account of 
 his agreeable qualities, had invited him to his house. The 
 daughter, still very young, was cautiously guarded, and 
 almost always confined to her chamber ; but Jeffreys con- 
 trived to make a confidant and friend of a poor relation of 
 hers, who was the daughter of a country parson, and lived 
 with her as a companion. Through this agency he had esta 
 blished a correspondence with the heiress, and an interest in 
 her affections, so that on his last visit she had agreed, if her 
 father's consent could not be obtained, to elope with him. 
 Whaft was his disappointment, soon after his return to his dis- 
 mal chamber in the Inner Temple, which he had hoped soon 
 to exchange for a sumptuous manor-house, to receive a letter 
 from the compa ion, informing him " that his correspondence 
 with the heiress had been discovered by the old father, who 
 was in such a rage, that, locking up her cousin, he had in- 
 stantly turned herself out of doors, and that having taken 
 shelter in the house of an acquaintance in Holborn, she was 
 there in a state of great destitution and distraction. — afraid to 
 return to her father, or to inform him of what had happened !" 
 The conduct of Jeffreys on this occasion may be truly con- 
 sidered the brightest passage in his history. He went to her, 
 found her in tears, and considering that he had been the 
 means of ruining her prospects in life (to say nothing of her 
 being much handsomer than her rich cousin), he offered her 
 his hand. She consented. Her father, notwithstanding the 
 
 f " Jan. 26, 16Y8. At this parliament it is is called to be one of the Masters of the Ben^b 
 ordered, that Sir George Jefferyes, Knt, be and of this Society."— Entry in Books of I. T. 
 
A.D. 1668-70. HIS IIAPID RISE AT THE BAR. 347 
 
 character and circumstances of his proposed son-in-law, — out 
 of regard to his daughter's reputation, sanctioned their, union, 
 and to the surprise of all parties gave her a fortune of 300/. 
 Accordingly, " on the 23rd of May, 1667, at Allhallow.s 
 Church, Barking, George Jeffreys of the Inner Temple, Esq., 
 was married to Sarah, the daughter of the Reverend Thomas 
 Necsbam, A.M." g 
 
 She made an excellent wife, and I do not find any complaint 
 of his having used her ill — till near the time of her death, a 
 few years after, when he had cast his affections upon the 
 lady who became the second Mrs. Jeffreys. Meanwhile he 
 left her at her father's, occasionally visiting her: and he 
 continued to carry on his former pursuits, and to strengthen 
 his connections in London, with a view to his success at 
 the bar, on which he resolutely calculated with unabated 
 confidence. 
 
 He was not disappointed. Xever had a young lawyer risen 
 so rapidly into practice. But he cut out a new line a .d. is68— 
 for himself. Instead of attending in "Westminster 167 °- 
 Hall to take notes in law French of the long-winded argu- 
 ments of Serjeants and eminent counsel, where he would have 
 had little chance of employment in actions real, and trials 
 at bar. as he was utterly unacquainted with ' • Fitzherbert's 
 Xatura Brevium," or " the Doctrina placitandi," h — he did not 
 go near any of the superior Courts for .' ome years, but confined 
 himself to the Old Bailey, the London Sessions, and Hieks's 
 Hall. There he was soon " the cock of the walk." 
 
 But at his outset there was no art, however low, to which 
 he would not resort with a view to " get on." " He used to 
 sit in coffee-houses, and order his clerk to come and tell him 
 that company attended him at his chamber. At which he would 
 huff and say. — Let them stay a little ; / will come presently ;— and 
 thus made a show of business." ' 
 
 Some of his pot companions wore now of great use to him 
 in bringing him briefs, and recommending him to business. 
 All this pushing would have been of little avail if he had not 
 
 '± Parish Reg. f Allhallows, Barking. describes his own demeanour:— 
 
 h Considering his recorded habits as a " At once with serious look profound, 
 student, it is possible he might bave made IVIine eyes communing with the ground, 
 the same use of this treatise to acquire the I seem d "like one estrang'd to sleep, 
 reputation of learning among the attorneys ' And fix'd in cogitation deep ; ' 
 as the Stated Mr. Surrebutter, who. » |™iS^ KnS \» 
 their approach, having conveyed into tne 
 ccal-hole what interested him more, thus ' North's Life of Guilford, ii. 9G. 
 
348 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVIII. 
 
 fully equalled expectation by the forensic abilities which he 
 displayed. He had a very sweet and poweiful voice, having 
 something in its tone which immediately fixed the attention, 
 so that his audience always were compelled to listen to him, 
 irrespective of what he said. k " He was of bold aspect, 
 and cared not for the countenance of any man." He was ex- 
 tremely voluble, but always perspicuous and forcible, making 
 use of idiomatic, and familiar, and colloquial, and sometimes 
 of coarse language. He never spared any assertion that was 
 likely to serve his client. He could get up a point of law so 
 as to argue it with great ability, and with the Justices, as 
 well as with Juries, his influence was unbounded. He was 
 particularly famous for his talent in cross-examination, in- 
 dulging in ribaldry and banter to a degree which would not 
 now be permitted. The audience being ever ready to take 
 part with the persecuted witness, the laugh was sometimes 
 turned against him. It is related that, about this time, be- 
 ginning to cross-examine a witness in a leathern doublet, who 
 had made out a complete case against his client, he bawled 
 forth, " You fellow in the leathern doublet, pray what have 
 you for swearing?" The man looked steadily at him, and 
 " Truly, sir," said he, " if you have no more for lying than I 
 have for swearing, 3'ou might wear a leathern doublet as well 
 as I." This blunt reply got to the west end of the town, and 
 was remembered among the courtiers against Jeffreys when 
 he grew to be a great man. 
 
 While a trial was going on, he was devotedly earnest in it ; 
 but when it was over, he would recklessly get drunk, as if he 
 never were to have another to conduct." 1 Coming so much in 
 contact with the aldermen, he ingratiated himself with them 
 very much, and he was particularl} 7 patronised by a namesake 
 (though no relation) of his own, — Jeffreys, alderman of Bread 
 Street Ward, who was very wealthy, a great smoker (an ac- 
 complishment in which the lawyer could rival him, as well 
 as in drinking), and who had immense influence with the 
 livery.* 
 
 k A few such voices I. have known in my accompanied him to the most exalted sta« 
 
 time, — particularly that of the late Sir Wil- tions.'"— Works, vol. ii. 14. 
 
 liam Garrow, — whose early professional n There were two aldermen of this name 
 
 career was pretty much like that of Jeffreys, in the reign of Charles II. — John, elected 
 
 although he was free from his vices. Alderman of Bread Street in 1661, of whom 
 
 m Mackintosh says, ' : His professional we are speaking, and Robert, elected Alder- 
 practice was low, and chiefly obtained from man of Cordwainer's Ward in 167ti,and Lord 
 the companions of his vulgar excesses, whom Mayor in 1636. 
 be captivated by that gross buffoonery which 
 
A.D. lfi7u-76. MADE COMMON SLKJEANT. 349 
 
 Pushed by him, or rising rapidly by bis own buoyancy, 
 George, our hero, before be bad been two years and ad 
 a half at the bar, and while only twenty-three years 
 of age, was elected Common Serjeant of the city of London, — 
 an office which has raised a Denman as well as a Jeffreys to be 
 Chief Justice of England. This first step of his elevation he 
 obtained on the 17th of March, 1671, on a vacancy occasioned 
 by the resignation of Sir Eichard Browne. 
 
 But his ambition was only inflamed by this promotion, 
 which disqualified him for a considerable part of his bar prac- 
 tice, and he resolved entirely to change the field of his ope- 
 rations, — making a dash at Westminster Hall. He knew well 
 that he could not be employed to draw declarations and pleas, 
 or to argue demurrers or special verdicts ; but he hoped his 
 talent for examining witnesses and for speaking might avail 
 him. At any rate, this was the only road to high distinction 
 in his profession, and he spurned the idea of spending his life 
 in trying petty larcenies, and dining with the City companies. 
 
 Hard drinking was again his grand resource. He could now 
 afford to invite the great City attorneys to his house a .d. i67o— 
 as well as carouse with them at taverns, and they 16T6 - 
 were pleased with the attentions of a rising barrister as well 
 as charmed with the pleasantly of the most jovial of com- 
 panions. He likewise began to cultivate fashionable society, 
 and to consider how he might contrive to get an intro- 
 duction at Court. " He put himself into all companies, — for 
 which he was qualified, by using himself to drink hard." — 
 Now was the time when men got forward in life by showing 
 their hatred of puritanism, their devotion to Church and King, 
 and an affectation of vice, even if actually free from it. 
 
 Yet such was the versatility of Jeffreys, that for the nonce 
 he could appear sanctimonious and even puritanical. Thus 
 he deceived the religious, the moral, the immaculate Sir 
 Matthew Hale, then Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Boger 
 North in drawing the character of this extraordinary man 
 says, " Although he was very grave in his own person, he loved 
 the most bizarr and irregular wits in the practice of the law 
 before him most extravagantly. So Sir George Jeffreys gained 
 as great an ascendant in practice over him as ever counsel had 
 over a judge." 
 
 As a King's Bench practitioner, Jeffreys was first employed 
 at Nisi Prius in actions for assaults and defamation « but before 
 long the City attorneys gave him briefs in commercial causes 
 
350 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCVIII. 
 
 tried at Guildhall, and though in banc he could not well stand 
 up against regularly-bred lawyers, like Sir Fiancis North, Sir 
 \\ illiain Jones, Sir Creswell Levinz, and Heneage Finch, the 
 son of the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, — he was generally 
 equal to them before a jury, and he rapidly trod upon their 
 heels. 
 
 He anxiously asked himself how was he to climb to high 
 office. He had started with the disaffected party, and they 
 had been of essential use to him ; but though they were grow- 
 ing in strength, no chance existed of their being able to make 
 Attorney -Generals, Chief Justices, or Chancellors. At the 
 same time he did not like yet to break with those who might 
 still serve him, — particularly in obtaining the Recordership, 
 which he coveted as a stepping stone to something better. 
 He resolved so to manage as to be a favourite of both parties 
 till he could devote himself entirely and exclusively and 
 openly to the one which should be dominant ; —and he again 
 succeeded. 
 
 From his well known influence in the City he found no 
 difficulty in making the acquaintance of Will Chiffinch, " the 
 trusty page of the back stairs," who, besides other employ- 
 ments of a still more confidential nature, was intrusted by 
 Charles II. to get at the secrets of all men of any consequence 
 in every department of life. " This Mr. Chiffinch," says 
 Eoger North, " was a true secretary as well as page, for he 
 had a lodging at the back stairs, which might have been pro- 
 perly termed ' the Spy Office,' — where the King spoke with 
 particular persons about intrigues of all kinds ; and all little 
 informers, projectors, &c, were carried to Chiffinch's lodging. 
 He was a most impetuous drinker, and in that capacity an 
 admirable spy ; for he let none part with him sober, if it were 
 possible to get them drunk, and his great artifice was pushing- 
 idolatrous healths of his good master, and being always in 
 haste ; for the King is coming, which was his word. Nor, to 
 make sure work, would he scruple to put his master's salu- 
 tiferous drops (which were called the King's, of the nature of 
 Goddard's) into the glasses ; and being an Hercules well 
 breathed at the sport himself, he commonly had the better ; 
 and so fished out many secrets, and discovered men's charac- 
 ters, which the King could never have obtained the knowledge 
 of by any other means. It is likely that Jeffreys being a pj ex- 
 tender to main feats with the citizens, might forward himself, 
 and be entertained by Will Chiffinch, and that which at fir*t 
 
A.D. 1677-78. RECORDER OF LONDON. 351 
 
 was mere spying turn to acquaintance, if not friendship, such 
 as is apt to grow up between immense drinkers, and from 
 thence might spring recommendations of him to the King, as 
 the most useful man that could be found to serve his Majesty 
 in London." ° 
 
 Thus while Mr. Common Serjeant was caballing in the City 
 with Lord Shaftesbury, who had established himself sept. 14, 
 in Aldersgate Street, and talked of becoming Lord 1677 - 
 Mayor, he had secretly got a footing at Court, and by assu- 
 rances of future services disposed the government to assist him 
 in all his jobs. His opposition friends were a little startled by 
 hearing that he had been made Solicitor to the Duke of York ; 
 but he assured them that this was merely a professional em- 
 ployment, unconnected with politics, which, according to 
 professional etiquette, he could not decline ; and when he was 
 knighted as a mark of royal favour, with which he was silly 
 enough to be much tickled, he said that he was obliged reluct- 
 antly to submit to the degradation as a consequence of his 
 employment. 
 
 By some mischance, which is not explained, he missed the 
 office of Recorder on the vacancy occasioned by the 
 resignation of Sir John Howel, who so outraged pub- 
 lic decency on the trial of Penn and Mead ; p but Sir William 
 Dolbein, the successful candidate, being made a Judge on the 
 22nd of October, 1678, Jeffreys was then elected his successor. 
 Upon this occasion there were three other candidates, — Mr. 
 Richardson, a Judge of the Sheriff "s Court ; Mr. Turner, a 
 bencher of Gray's Inn ; and Mr. Robert Belwood, a barrister 
 of the Middle Temple : but he was so warmly supported by 
 both parties in politics, that they all withdrew before the day 
 of nomination, and he is said in the City Records to have been 
 " freely and unanimously elected." 
 
 ° Roger North's Life of Guilford, ii. 98. P 6 St. Tr. 95 J . 
 
352 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chip. XC1X 
 
 CHAPTEK XCIX. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS TILL HIS 
 APPOINTMENT AS LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE KINGS BENCH. 
 
 The new Recorder had hardly been sworn in, when, feeling 
 that the liberals could do nothing more for him, he 
 utterly cast them off, becoming, for the rest of his 
 life, the open, avowed, unblushing slave of the Court, and the 
 bitter, persecuting, and unappeasable enemy of the principles 
 he had before supported, and of the men he had professed to 
 love. 
 
 He entirely forsook Thanet House, in Aldersgate Street, 
 and all the meetings of the Whigs in the City ; and instead of 
 secret interviews with Will Chiffinch in "the Spy Office," he 
 went openly to Court, and, with his usual address, he con- 
 trived, by constant assiduities and flatteries, to gain the good 
 graces both of Nell Gwin and of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
 who, since the fall of Lady Castlemaine, held divided empire 
 at Whitehall, balancing the Roman Catholic and Protestant 
 parties. To each of these ladies, it would appear from the 
 libels of the day, his rise was attributed. q 
 
 However, not long after he had openly ratted, an accident 
 happened that had like to have spoiled all his pro- 
 jects ; and that was the breaking out of the Popish 
 plot. Alt ough there is no reasonable ground for saying that 
 it was contrived by Shaftesbury, he made such skilful and 
 unscrupulous use of it, that suddenly, from appearing the leader 
 
 1 " ■ Well,' quoth Sir G., ■ the Whigs may think me rude, 
 Or brand me guilty of ingratitude ; 
 At my preferment they, poor fools, may grudge, 
 And think me fit for hangman more than Judge ; 
 But though they fret, and bite their nails, and brawl, 
 I'll slight them, and go kiss dear Xelly Wall.' "* — .Midsummer Moon. 
 
 Monmouth's tamer, Jeff's advance, False and foolish, proud and bold. 
 
 Foe to England, spy to France, Ugly as you see, and old." 
 
 Duchess of Portsmouth' t Picture. 
 
 * Said to have been Nelly's maiden name. 
 
A.D. 1679. ADVISES THE COURT TO OUTBID SHAF'lESBURV. 353 
 
 of a small, declining, and despairing party, lie had the City and 
 the nation at his beck, and with a majority in both Houses of 
 Parliament, there seemed every probability that he wonld soon 
 force himself upon the King, and have at his disposal all the 
 patronage of the government. Jeffreys was for some time 
 much disconcerted, and thought that once in his life he had 
 made a false move. He was utterly at a loss how to conduct 
 himself ; and his craft never was put to so severe a trial. It 
 is even said, that he had the meanness to try to reconcile him- 
 self to his old friends. But I do not believe that he seriously 
 made or contemplated such an attempt, as it would have been 
 foolish ; for he had, in the insolence of his triumph, left him- 
 self no retreat, and he had not only deserted but vituperated 
 and insulted the leaders of the opposition. 
 
 I have little doubt, therefore, that he soon recovered his 
 courage, and with his usual intuition saw the right course to 
 be pursued ; for, like the man whose notice he once humbly 
 courted, but to whom he was now opposed, he showed him- 
 self— 
 
 " A daring pilot in extremity, 
 Pleas'd with the danger when the waves ran high." 
 
 Being called into council, he recommended that the govern- 
 ment should profess to credit the plot, and should outvie the 
 other side in zeal for the Protestant religion, — but should con- 
 trive to make Shaftesbury answerable for the reality of the 
 conspiracy, so that, if hereafter it should blow up, or the people 
 should get tired of it, all that was done to punish the supposed 
 authors of it might be laid to his account. 
 
 I cannot understand why he was not now brought into par- 
 liament, where his services were much wanted, and where one 
 would have expected from his bold, ready, and sarcastic style 
 of speaking, his success was certain. On the Exclusion Bill 
 it might have been thought that his patron, the Duke of York, 
 would have mainly relied upon him ; and when Danby was to 
 be impeached, that minister might well have availed himself 
 of such a powerful advoca+e. Mr. Eecorder had no longer a 
 chance to be returned for the city of London, but most of the 
 Cornish boroughs were then in the power of the government, 
 and if there had been a difficulty in finding a seat for him 
 near the conclusion of the parliament which had sat seventeen 
 years, he might easily have been introduced in the two West- 
 minster parliaments, and the Oxford parliament which followed. 
 
 VOL. iv. 2 A 
 
354 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCLX. 
 
 Yet Jeffreys remained the only lawyer of the 17th center* 
 who took a prominent part in politics, and was never a member 
 of the House of Commons. 
 
 Perhaps there were jealousies among the ministerialists in 
 the House, which prevented his being permitted to join them, 
 it being foreseen that he would immediately struggle for the 
 lead ; perhaps it was thought that the Court would be less 
 benefited by his talents than damaged by his bad character, 
 which was now notorious ; and there might be a dread of his 
 habit of intoxication, in which he occasionally indulged to 
 great excess, and which might have led him in debate to 
 divulge Cabinet secrets, and have brought the administra- 
 tion into difficulties. 
 
 However this may be, we find that he immediately began 
 diligently to work the Popish plot according to his own 
 scheme. Coleman, Whitbread, Ireland, and all whom Oates 
 and Bedloe accused being committed to prison, — it was re- 
 solved to prosecute them for high treason in having com- 
 passed the death of the King, as well as the overthrow 
 of the Protestant religion, — and their trials were conducted 
 by the government as state trials, partly at the bar of the 
 Court of King's Bench, and partly at the Old Bailey. In 
 the former Jeffreys acted as a counsel, in the latter as a 
 Judge/ It is asserted, and not improbably, that he had a 
 real horror of Popery, which, though he could control it 
 in the presence of the Duke of York, and when his in- 
 terest required, at other times burst out with sincerity as 
 well as fierceness. 
 
 Scroggs presided at the Old Bailey, 3 but Jeffreys whetted 
 his fury by telling him that the King was a thorough be- 
 liever in the plot,' and by echoing his expressions ; as, when 
 
 r 7St.Tr. 6,167, 312, 487,609,769, 842, 908, dissolute in his morals, and so much embar- 
 959, 1050, 1081, 1208. 8 St. Tr. 128, 287, 301, rassed that when a Serjeant he was arrestnd 
 524, 573, 640, 653. for debt in Westminster Hall,— he was made, 
 s St. Tr. vol. vii. on account of his subserviency, first a Puisne 
 1 As the name of this wretch is so often Judge of the Common Pleas, and then Chief 
 coupled with that of Jeffreys, it may be Justice of the Common Pleas. When he con- 
 proper to give a short account of him. The victed the Popish conspirators with such zeal, 
 story of his being the son of a butcher, he believed that the government was sincere 
 though generally circulated and believed in in prosecuting them, and he was confirmed in 
 his own time, was a fiction. He was the son this notion by seeing Shaftesbury taken into 
 of a private gentleman in Oxfordshire, and office; but when he was told that "the Pre- 
 took a degree at the University ; he was sideut of the Council had no more influence 
 intended for the church, but in the civil war with the King than his footman," he threw 
 took arms for the King. He was then called cold water on the plot,— for which he was 
 to the bar, and although he was exceedingly impeached He was obliged to give up hia 
 
A.D. 1679. HIS SERVICES IN PROSECUTING POPISH PLOT. 355 
 
 the Chief Justice said to the jury, " Yen have done like honest 
 men, " Jeffreys exclaimed, in a stage whisper, " They have 
 done like honest men." As mouthpiece of the Lord Mayor, 
 the head of the Commission, — after conviction he had the 
 pleasing duty of passing sentence of death by the protracted 
 tortures which the law of treason prescribed. He said to 
 Ireland, Grove, and Pickering, the Jesuits, " Thus I speak to 
 you, gentlemen, not vauntingly ; 'tis against my nature to 
 insult upon persons in your sad condition : God forgive you for 
 what you have done ; and I do heartily beg it, though you 
 don't desire I should : for, poor men ! you may believe that 
 your interest in the world to come is secured to you by your 
 oiasses, but do well consider that vast eternity you must, 
 ere long, enter into, and that great tribunal you must appear 
 before, where masses will not signify so many groats to you ; 
 no, not one farthing. And I must say it, for the sake of those 
 silly people whom you have imposed upon with such fal- 
 lacies, that the masses can no more save you from future 
 damnation than they do from a present condemnation. The 
 sentence of the law is." &c. ; and then came from his delighted 
 lips the hurdle, the hanging, the cutting down alive, and other 
 particulars too she eking to be repeated." 
 
 He had a still greater treat in passing the like sentence on 
 Eichard Langhorn, an eminent Catholic banister, with whom 
 he had been familiarly acquainted. He first addressed gene- 
 rally the whole batch of the prisoners convicted, — whom he 
 thus continues to upbraid for trying to root out " the best of 
 religions :" "I call it the best of religions, even for your 
 sakes ; for had it not been for the sake of our religion, that 
 teaches us not to make such requitals as yours seems to teach 
 you, you had not had this fair, formal trial, but murder 
 would have been returned to you for the murder you in- 
 tended to commit both upon the King and most of his 
 
 office, but was allowed to die in peace. A And why the butcherly son (_ forsooth !) 
 few stanzas of a ballad then published upon Should now be Judge and Jury both, 
 him, will show how he was regarded by his Cannot be understood, sirs, 
 
 contemporaries .— » The good old man with j^^ and ^^^ 
 
 " A Butchers son 's Judge capital, Made harmless sheep and j-tubborn ox 
 Poor Protestants to enthral, Stoop to him in his fury ; 
 
 And England to enslave, sirs ; But the brib'd son, like greasy oaph, 
 
 T/se both our laws and lives we must, Kneels down and worships golden calf, 
 When to do justice we intrust And massacres the jury.'' 
 
 So known an errant knave, sirs. Justice in Masquerade 
 
 • His father once exempted was u 7 St. Tr. 138. 
 
 C*it of all juries ; why, because 
 lie was a man of blood, sir* ; 
 
 2 i 2 
 
356 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCIX. 
 
 people. What a strange sort of religion is that whose doc- 
 trine seems to allow them to be the greatest saints in another 
 world who have been the most impudent sinners in this ! 
 Murder and the blackest of crimes were the best means 
 among you to get a man to be canonised a saint hereafter." 
 Then he comes to his brother-lawj-er. " There is one gentle- 
 man that stands at the bar whom I am very sorry to see, 
 with all my heart, in this condition, because of some acquaint- 
 ance I have had with him heretofore. To see that a man 
 who hath understanding in the law, and who hath arrived 
 at so great an eminency in that profession as this gentleman 
 hath done, should not remember that it is not only against 
 the rales of Christianity, but even against the rules of his 
 profession, to attempt any injury against the person of the 
 King ! He knows it is against all the rules of law to endea- 
 vour to introduce a foreign power into this land. So that 
 you have sinned both against your conscience and your own 
 certain knowledge." Last of all he offers his friend the as- 
 sistance of a Protestant divine to prepare him for a speedy 
 departure, and, referring him to the statute whereby the mi- 
 nistration of a Catholic priest is made illegal, he himself, 
 though " a layman," gives him some " pious advice." — He had 
 carried the sympathies of his audience along with him, for, 
 when he had concluded with the " quartering," he was greeted 
 v r ith a loud shout of applause/ 
 
 Thus, by the powerful assistance of the Recorder, did the 
 government obtain popularity for prosecuting the plot till the 
 people at last actually did get tired of it, and Shaftesbury was 
 prevented from deriving any fruit from it beyond the precari- 
 ous tenure, for a few months, of his office of President of the 
 Council. 
 
 The Recorder was equally zealous, on all other occasions, 
 to do what he thought would be agreeable at Court. With 
 the view of repressing public discussion, he laid down for law, 
 as he said, on the authority of all the Judges, "that no person 
 whatsoever could expose to the public knowledge any thing 
 that concerned the affairs of the public without licence from 
 the King, or from such persons as he may think fit to intrust 
 with that power." y 
 
 x 7 St. Tr, 487. After this, the story is murder, by whom he had often been beaten 
 
 credible which Sir Walter Scott used to tell a t chess, concluded by saying, "and no* I 
 
 ■jf a Scotch Judge, who, having sentenced to think I have check-mated you !" 
 death an old friend tried before him tor y 7 St. Tr. 928, 1114, 1127. 
 
A.D. 1679. MADE CHIEF JUSTICE OF CHESTER. 357 
 
 The Grand Jury having several times returned " ignoramus" 
 to an indictment against one Smith for a libel, in respect of a 
 very innocent publication, though they were sent out of Court 
 to reconsider the finding, he at last exclaimed, " God bless me 
 from such jurymen ! I will see the face of ever} 7 one of them, 
 and let others see them also." He accordingly cleared the 
 bar, and, calling the jurymen one by one, put the question to 
 them, and made each of them repeat the word " ignoramus." 
 He then went on another' tack, and addressing the defendant, 
 said, in a coaxing tone, " Come, Mr. Smith, there are two per- 
 sons besides you whom this jury have brought in ignoramus ; 
 but they have been ingenuous enough to confess, and I cannot 
 think to fine them little enough : they shall be fined two- 
 pence for their ingenuity in confessing. AY ell, come, Mr. 
 Smith, we know who hath formerly owned both printing and 
 publishing this book." — Smith. " Sir, my ingenuity hath suffi- 
 ciently experienced the reward of your severity ; and, besides, 
 I know no law commands me to accuse myself ; neither shall 
 I ; and the jury have done like true Englishmen and worthy 
 citizens, and blessed be God for such a jury." Jeffreys was 
 furious, but could only vent his rage by committing the de- 
 fendant till he gave security for his good behaviour. 
 
 Such services were not to go unrewarded. It was the wish 
 of the government to put the renegade Jeffreys into the 
 office of Chief Justice of Chester, so often the price of political 
 apostacy ; but Sir Job Charlton, a very old gentleman, who 
 now held it, could not be prevailed upon voluntarily to re- 
 sign, for he had a considerable estate in the neighbourhood, 
 and was loth to be stripped of his dignity. Jeffreys, supported 
 oy the Duke of York, pressed the King hard, urging that 
 'a Welshman ought not to judge his countrymen," and a 
 message was sent to Sir Job that he was to be removed. He 
 laid this heavily to heart, and desired only that he might 
 speak to the King, and receive his pleasure from his own 
 mouth ; but was told that it was a thing resolved upon. 
 Once, however, he went to Whitehall, and placed himself 
 " like hermit poor," where the King, returning from feeding 
 his ducks in St. James's Park, must pass ; but his Majesty 
 was now so much ashamed of the affair, that, when he spied 
 Sir Job, he turned short round and went another way. The 
 old gentleman was imperfectly consoled with the place ot 
 Puisne Judge of the Common Pleas, which, in the reign oi 
 lames II., he was subsequently allowed to exchange for his 
 
358 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCIX. 
 
 beloved Chester. Meanwhile he was succeeded by Jeffreys, 
 ' v more Welshman than himself," who was at the same time 
 made counsel for the Crown, at Ludlow, where a Court was 
 still held for \\ ales. 
 
 Immediately afterwards the new Chief Justice was called 
 Aprir26, to the degree of the Coif, and made King's Serjeant, 
 1680. whereby he had precedence in Westminster Hall 
 of the Attorney and Solicitor-General. The motto on his 
 rings, with great brevity and point, inculcated the prevailing 
 doctrines of divine right and passive obedience — " A Deo 
 Eex, a Rege Lex." As a further mark of royal favour, there 
 was conferred upon him the hereditary dignity of a Baronet. 
 He still retained the Eecordership of London, and had exten- 
 sive practice at the bar. 
 
 We have notices of a few important causes in which he was 
 engaged as counsel. A new translation of the Psalms had 
 been published under the title of " the King's Psalter," and 
 the Stationers' Company applied to the King in Council to 
 protect their property from invasion. Charles was present 
 when the case came on to be heard, and thus was he ad- 
 dressed by the learned Recorder :— " They have teemed, Sir, 
 with a spurious brat, which being clandestinely mid wived 
 into the world, the better to cover the imposture they lay it at 
 your Majesty's door." We may know, from the introductory 
 lines of " Absalom and Achitophel," that his Majesty was well 
 pleased with any allusion, however public, to his gallantries. 
 On the present occasion he whispered, " This is a bold fellow," 
 and did not try to disguise his satisfaction. Jeffreys got a de- 
 cree for his clients. 
 
 He was equally successful in an important suit he con- 
 ducted in the King's Bench for the Duke of York, to whom 
 the revenue of the post-office had been granted, and who had 
 prosecuted a person of the name of Dockra for establishing 
 " the penny post " in London for his own benefit. The Court 
 decided that this was an infraction of the Duke's right. His 
 Royal Highness therefore continued to have " the penn}^ post " 
 for the rest of this reign ; and, from his own accession, it was 
 under the immediate management of the Crown, the profits 
 going into the public revenue. z 
 
 The great prosperity which Jeffreys now enjoyed had not 
 the effect which it ought to have produced upon a good dispo- 
 sition, — by making him more courteous and kind +o others. 
 
 '■ Life of Guilford, ii. 99. 
 
A..D. 16S0. 
 
 HIS INSOLENCE TO THE JUDGES. 
 
 359 
 
 When not under the sordid dread of injuring himself by of- 
 fending superiors, he was universally insolent and overbearing. 
 Bemo- made Chief Justice of Chester, he thought that all 
 Puisne Judges were beneath him, and he would not behave tc 
 thern with decent respect, even when practising before them. 
 At the Kingston Assizes, Baron Weston having tried to check 
 his irregularities, he complained that he was not treated like 
 a counsellor, being curbed in the management of his brief. 
 — Weston, B. " Sir George, since the King has thrust his fa- 
 vours upon you, and made you Chief Justice of Chester, you 
 think to run down everybody : if you find yourself aggrieved, 
 make your complaint : here's nobody cares for you." — 
 Jeffreys. " I have not been used to make complaints, but 
 rather to stop those that are made." — Weston, B. "I desire, 
 Sir, that you will sit down." He sat down, and is said to 
 have wept with anger. His intemperate habits had so far 
 shaken his nerves, that he shed tears very freely on any strong- 
 emotion.' 1 
 
 a The manner in which Jeffreys was re- 
 garded by the public at this time is very 
 strikingly illustrated by an anonymous letter 
 received by him, which had fallen into the 
 hands of Sir Peter King, Recorder of London, 
 afterwards Lord Chancellor, and is now pre- 
 served among the papers of the Earl of Love- 
 lace. This effusion of malignity, like the 
 famous letter of Mary to Elizabeth, which 
 cost the Scottish queen her life, professes in 
 a candid and friendly spirit to communicate 
 the ill-natured things said of the party 
 addressed : — 
 
 " May it please your Lordship,— You were 
 once counsel for me at a trial where you 
 spake so brave and loud that we carried the 
 cause, and I have loved you for it ever since ;* 
 and having an opportunity now to show it, I 
 send you the following account, for it is use- 
 ful for men who design to be great, to know 
 what the people 6ay of them. The other day 
 I was at the election of the Sheriffs,! where 
 one of my neighbours commended the former 
 part of your speech exceedingly, and said 
 your fellow servant Coleman's declaration 
 was not better penned: yet he could not 
 believe that the D. of York's solicitor could 
 
 be very hearty in the Protestant religion. 
 But he thought you a very proper man for 
 the office you hold in the City, to be our 
 mouth and lungs, when Sir Richard Clayton 
 is our head, because now those parts are good 
 in their kind. ' But I wonder,' continued he, 
 ' that they two agree no better, for I am sure 
 my Lady Jefferies the longest day she has to 
 live cannot forget the kindness Miss Blud- 
 worth met with at bis house one night.' % 
 ' Aye, but,' says another, ' all Lord Mayors 
 have an antipathy against him ever since he 
 betrayed his client the Lord Mayor of York 
 at the council table.' ' What you call a 
 betraying,' said I, ' was but prevailing with 
 his client to submit to the council board, who 
 are in the wrong, and might appear to have 
 the better on't. But for that and some other 
 like services, he was lately made Chief 
 Justice of Chester, and soon will be Attorney- 
 General.' ' What is the manner of making 
 an Attorney-General i ' said my neighbour. 
 I told him I thought it was by entering a 
 form of words (as the City of London does at 
 my Lord Mayor's day, in the Courts of West- 
 minster Hall) : Dominus Rex ponit loco svo 
 Georgium Jeffries, &c. ' If that be all,' said 
 
 * Satire on his bullying style of doing business at the bar. 
 f 24th June, 1680, when Jeffreys as Recorder conducted the proceedings. 
 J Alluding to some scandalous anecdote respecting his second wife, whose maiden niaie 
 was Bluduorth. 
 
360 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. 
 
 Chap. XCIX, 
 
 We may be prepared for his playing some fantastic trickf 
 before his countrymen at Chester, where he was subject to no 
 control ; but the description of his conduct there by Lord 
 Delamere (afterwards Earl of Warrington), in denouncing it 
 in the House of Commons, must surely be overcharged : — 
 
 " The county for which I serve is Cheshire, which is a county 
 palatine ; and we have two Judges peculiarly assigned us by his 
 Majesty. Our puisne Judge 1 have nothing to say against ; he is a very 
 honest man, for aught I know ; but I cannot be silent as to our chief 
 Judge ; and I will name him, because what I have to say will appeal 
 
 a stander-by, ' Sir George has got that already, 
 for that was the form of his marriage licence." * 
 Whereat some of the company fell a laughing, 
 but I cannot imagine why. However, I 
 desired them to be civil and mannerly, and 
 not to laugh at you whom they ought to 
 respect, as being the mouth of the City. My 
 neighbours presently snapt me up, and said 
 that you were the .' foul mouth of the City,' 
 and pointing to you on the hustings cried, 
 ' That's our mountebank lawyer, and that 
 you could no more make an argument at law 
 than you could speak softly ; and though you 
 bragged that as long as Nelly Wall was the 
 mistress, and the D 558 . of P. was her mistress 
 and our master's mistress, you could have 
 what you would at Court ;' f yet he said you 
 were already come to the highest, and we 
 should see you dwindle to nothing, like your 
 wife's jointure. I replied that he might be 
 mistaken ; we shouid live to see you Lord 
 Chancellor, and then the lady would be sure 
 to have a good joint-ure.and to have her train 
 held up. ' I know,' sail* he, ' an addition to 
 his wife's jointure woulA be very welcome, 
 but for his coals they were taken up in her 
 maiden days.' I was extremely vexed at 
 that, but I thought it best not to stir in such 
 a business, and 'tis no great matter what he 
 says, for he is a rascal and a rebel,— a very 
 fanatic, and in my next letter you shall know 
 his name. In the mean time, I will be a spy 
 for you at the Rainbow and the Amsterdam 
 Coffeehouses, where the fanatics speak often- 
 times very saucily of you. One of them told 
 me a lie there t'other day, ' that my lady was 
 
 b* to bed before her time, and that you 
 reckoned without her host, and that you 
 were the Bull and Moses of the City,' and 
 said, ' when you come to be put in the pil- 
 lory as Harris was, you will never be able to 
 get your head out again.' But when we get 
 them into the Crown Office, you and I will 
 make them pay for all.} After all this intel- 
 ligence, pray take my advice, be patient ; for 
 the fretting and blowing is as improper to 
 extinguish the fire that is now smoking all 
 
 over the City, as the § was to blow out 
 
 the great bonfire that Holy Catholic Church 
 made in Pudding Lane. || And if you would 
 but observe, the poor mad folks about the 
 streets the naughty boys don't use to follow 
 them and call them names, unless like you 
 they make a noise, and throw dirt. And be 
 not so free of speech : that which you take 
 to be your talent— speech-making, you love 
 it, but it loves not you. It will have no 
 better success than Scroggs's still prefaced 
 apology in Wakeman's case,^| which did no 
 more clear his innocence than Pilate's speech 
 did . that Scroggs fell short in this, that he 
 did not wash his hands. And all he said wa? 
 largely and abundantly answered by Pember- 
 ton's saying nothing — who knew better than 
 to believe him, and was better bred than tc 
 tell him he lied. 
 
 " I am, 
 " Your Worship's humble Servant, 
 "A Liveryman of the City of Loxdox. 
 
 '•' Cheapside, July 17th, 1680. 
 " To Sir George Jeffries the Recorder." 
 
 * Vide post an account of the lady's frailties. f Vide ante, p. 352. 
 
 X A threatened prosecution for defamation in the Court of King's Bench. 
 
 $ Illegible. 
 
 || The Fire of London, which began in Pudding Lane and ended in Pie Corner. 
 
 *i Alluding to some proceedings lately instituted by Shaftesbury against his tool Scroggs?. 
 
A.D. 1680. VISITS HIS NATIVE PLACE. 361 
 
 more probable. His name is Sir George Jeffreys, who, T must say, 
 behaved himself more like a Jack-pudding than with that gravity 
 which becomes a Judge. He was witty upon the prisoners at the bar. 
 He was very full of his jokes upon people that came to give evidence, 
 not suffering them to declare what they had to say in their own way 
 and method, but would interrupt them because they behaved them- 
 selves with more gravity than he. But I do not insist upon this, nor 
 upon the late hours he kept up and down our city : it's said he was 
 every night drinking till two o'clock, or beyond that time, and that he 
 went to his chamber drunk ; but this I have only by common fame, for 
 I was not in his company ; I bless God 1 am not a man of his principles 
 and behaviour ; but in the mornings he appeared with the symptoms of 
 a man that overnight had taken a large cup. That which 1 have to say 
 is the complaint of every man, especially of them that had any law- 
 suits. Our Chief Justice has a very arbitrary power in appointing the 
 assize when he pleases, and this man has strained it to the highest 
 point ; for whereas we were accustomed to have two assizes, the first 
 about April or May, the latter about September, — it was this year the 
 middle (as I remember) of August before we had any assize : and then 
 he despatched business so well that he left half the causes untried ; 
 and, to help the matter, has resolved we shall have no more assizes 
 this year." b 
 
 Being tired of revelling in Chester, he put a sudden end 
 to his first assize there, that he might pay a visit to his native 
 place, — to which I am afraid he was less prompted by a pious 
 wish to embrace his father, who had been so resolutely bent 
 on making him a shopkeeper, and w T ho, from the stories pro- 
 pagated about his conduct as a Judge, still expressed some mis- 
 givings about him, — than to dazzle his old companions with 
 the splendour of his new state. Accordingly, he came with 
 such a train that the cider-barrels at Acton ran very fast, and 
 the larder was soon exhausted ; whereupon, the old gentle- 
 man, in a great fret, charged his son with a design to ruin him, 
 by bringing a whole country at his heels, and warned him 
 against again attempting the same prodigality. 
 
 But a violent political storm now arose, which threatened 
 entirely to overwhelm our hero, and from which he did not 
 escape unhurt. In the straggle which arose from the long 
 delay to assemble Parliament, he had leagued himself strongly 
 with the "Abhorrers" against the " Petitioners," and pro- 
 ceedings were instituted in the House of Commons on this 
 ground, against him along with Chief Justice Scroggs and 
 Chief Justice North. d 
 
 b Wool. 66. Chandler's Debates, ii. 163. d Burnet, in referring to these proceedings, 
 
 * Ante, p. 303 et seq. seys, " They fell also on Sir George Jeffries 
 
362 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCLX. 
 
 A petition from the City of London, very numerously 
 signed, having been presented, complaining that the Recorder 
 had obstructed the citizens in their attempts to have Parlia- 
 ment assembled for the redress of grievances, a select com- 
 mittee was appointed -who, having heard evidence on the 
 subject, and examined him in person, presented a report, — on 
 which the following resolutions were passed : — 
 
 " That Sir George Jeffreys, Recorder of the City of London, by 
 traducing and obstructing petitioning for the sitting of this Parliament, 
 hath destroyed the right of the subject. 
 
 " That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, to remove Sir 
 George Jeffreys out of all public offices. 
 
 " That the members of this House serving for the City of London 
 do communicate these resolutions to the Court of Aldermen for the 
 said City." 
 
 The King was stanch, and returned for answer to tho 
 address the civil refusal "that he would consider of*it;" e 
 but Jeffreys, who, where he apprehended personal danger, was 
 " none of the intrepids," quailed under the charge, and, afraid 
 of farther steps being taken against him, came to an under- 
 standing that he should give up the Eecordership, which his 
 enemies wished to be conferred upon their partisan, Sir George 
 Treby. The King was much chagrined at the loss of such a 
 valuable Eecorder, and said sarcastically that " he was not 
 parliament proof." But he was obliged to acquiesce, and 
 Jeffreys, having been reprimanded on bis knees at the bar, 
 was discharged. The address of Speaker Williams was very 
 bitter, and caused deep resentment in the mind of Jeffreys. { 
 On the 2nd of December he actually did resign his office, and 
 Treby was chosen to succeed him. g 
 
 In a few days after there was exhibited one of Lord Shaftes- 
 buiy's famous Protestant processions, on the anniversary of the 
 accession of Queen Elizabeth. 11 In this rode a figure on horse- 
 back to represent the Ex-Eecorder, with his face to the tail, 
 and a label on his back — " I am an Abhorrer." At Temple 
 Bar he was thrown into a bonfire, coupled with the Devil, — 
 
 a furious declaimer at the bar." — Vol. ii. the city here present, did freely surrender up 
 
 121 into this Court his place of Recorder, aud all 
 
 e "Le Roy s'avisera," the royal veto to a his right and interest therein, of which sur- 
 
 bill passed by the two Houses.* render the Court did accept and allow. George 
 
 f North's Life of Guilford, ii. 108. 4 Pari. Treby, of the Middle Temple, London, Esq. 
 
 Hist. 1218. Wool. 75. was elected the same day."— City Books. 
 
 S " On the second of Dec 1 ". Sir George b Ante, p. 206. 
 Jeffreys, Bart , Serjeant-at-Law, Recorder of 
 
A.D. 1681. CHAIRMAN AT HICKS'S HALL. 363 
 
 the preceding pair, who suffered the same fate, being Sir Eoger 
 L'Estrange and the Pope of EomeJ 
 
 However, all these indignities endeared him to the Court ; 
 and his pusillanimity was forgiven from the recollection of 
 past, and the hope of future services. A petition from the 
 City being presented to the King at Hampton Court, he 
 attended as a liveryman, though no longer the mouth-piece of 
 the corporation. — when he was treated with marked civility 
 by Charles, and detained to dinner, — while the Lord Mayor 
 and Aldermen, and the new Eecorder, were sent off with a 
 reprimand. 
 
 To oblige the Court, and to assist them in their criminal 
 jobs, he accepted the appointment of Chairman of the Mid- 
 dlesex Sessions at Hicks's Hall; although it was somewhat 
 beneath his dignity, and it deprived him of a portion of his 
 practiced Here the Grand Jury were sworn in ; and as 
 they were returned by sheriffs whom the City of London 
 elected, and who were still of the liberal party, the problem 
 was to have them remodelled, so that they might find bills of 
 indictment against all whom the government wished to pro- 
 secute. With this view, Jeffreys declared that none should 
 serve except true Church of England men ; and he ordered the 
 under-sheriff to return a new panel purged of all sectarians 
 He had a particular spite against the Presbyterians, 
 who had mainly contributed to his being turned out 
 of the Eecordership. The under-sheriff disobeying his sum- 
 mons, he ordered the sheriffs to attend next day in person ; 
 but in their stead came the new Eecorder, who urged that, by 
 the privileges of the City of London, they were exempted from 
 attending at Hicks's Hall. He overruled this claim with 
 contempt, and fined the sheriffs 100/. It was found, how- 
 ever, that while the City retained the power of electing 
 the sheriffs, all these attempts to pervert justice would be 
 fruitless.™ 
 
 Jeffreys remained in a state of painful anxiety during 
 Charles's last Westminster parliament, and during the few 
 days of the Oxford parliament. The popular party had such 
 a majority in the House of Commons, and seemed so powerful, 
 that it is said the renegade again expressed deep regret that 
 he had left them : but late at night, on Monday the 28th 
 day of March, 1681, news arrived in London, that early that 
 morning the King had dissolved the parliament, and had 
 
 i Wool. 80. * Ibid. 85. ■ Ibid. 86. 
 
364 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCIX. 
 
 declared his firm determination never to call another. If 
 Jeffreys was still sober, and got drunk that night, we ought to 
 excuse him. 
 
 Now his talents were to be brought into full play. In the 
 conflict, the ranks of the enemy being thrown into disorder, 
 the brigade of the lawyers, who had been kept back as a re- 
 serve, was marched up to hang on their broken rear insulting, 
 and to sweep them from the field. 
 
 First came on the trial of Fitzharris for high treason. 
 Jeffreys, as counsel for the Crown, argued the demurrer to 
 the plea of the pendency of the impeachment ; and then, 
 having assisted the Duchess of Portsmouth to evade the ques- 
 tions which were put to her, for the purpose of showing that 
 the prisoner had acted under the King's orders, he addressed 
 the Jury with great zeal after the Solicitor-General, and was 
 mainly instrumental in obtaining the conviction." 
 
 Next came the trial of Archbishop Plunkett, the Roman 
 Catholic Primate of Ireland ; in which Jeffreys was 
 so intemperate, that the Attorney-General was obliged 
 to check him, that the prisoner might have some show of fair 
 play." But it was on the trial of College, " the Protestant 
 joiner," that he gave the earliest specimen of his characteristic 
 ribaldry, and his talent for jesting in cases of life and death, 
 which shone out so conspicuously when he was Lord Chief 
 Justice of the King's Bench. He began with strongly justify- 
 ing the act of taking from the prisoner the papers he was to use 
 in his defence, saying, that to allow him to see them would be 
 " assigning counsel to him with a vengeance." A witness 
 having stated that pistols were found in the prisoner's holsters 
 when he was attending the City members at Oxford, Jeffreys 
 exclaimed with a grin, " I think a chisel might have been more 
 proper for a, joiner." 
 
 There was called as a witness by the prisoner one Lun, who, 
 being a waiter at the Devil Tavern, and a fanatic, had some 
 years before been caught on his knees praying against the 
 Cavaliers, saying " Scatter them, good Lord ! Scatter them ! " 
 — from whence he had ever after borne the nickname of " Scat- 
 ter'em." Jeffreys thus begins his cross-examination : — " We 
 know you, Mr. Lun ; we only ask questions about you that 
 the jury too may know you as well as we." — Lun. " I don't 
 care to give evidence of anything but the truth. I was never 
 on my limes before the parliament for any thing" — Jeffreys. " Nor 
 
 n 8 St. Tr. 223. ° Ibid. 44? 
 
A.D. 1682. HIS TREACHERY TO THE CITY. 365 
 
 I neither for much, yet you were once on your knees when 
 you cried, Scatter them, good Lord I Was it not so, Mr. Scat- 
 ter'em?" 
 
 He had next an encounter with the famous Titus Oates, who 
 was called by College, and who, when cross-examined by 
 him, appealed to Sir George Jeffreys's own knowledge of a 
 fact about which he was inquiring. — Jeffreys. "Sir George 
 Jeffreys does not intend to be an evidence, I assure you." — 
 Dr. Oates. "I do not desire Sir George Jeffreys to be an evi- 
 dence for me ; I had credit in parliaments, and Sir George 
 had disgrace, in one of them." — Jeffreys. "Your servant, 
 Doctor ; you are a witty man and a philosopher." 15 — He had 
 his full revenge when the Doctor himself was afterwards tried 
 before him. 
 
 We may judge of the Councillor's general style of treating 
 witnesses by his remark on the trial of Lord Grey de 
 Werke for carrying off the Lady Henrietta Berkeley ; when 
 his objection was overruled to the competency of the young 
 lady as a witness for the defendant, although she was not only 
 of high rank and uncommon beauty, but undoubted veracity, 
 — he observed, " Truly, my Lord, we would prevent perjury 
 if we could." q 
 
 We now come to transactions which strikingly prove the 
 innate baseness of his nature in the midst of his pretended 
 openness and jolly good humour. He owed every thing in 
 life to the Corporation of the City of London. The freemen, 
 in the exercise of their ancient privileges, had raised him 
 from the ground by electing him Common Serjeant and Ee- 
 corder, and to the influence he was supposed to have in the 
 Court of Common Council and in the Court of Aldermen 
 must be ascribed his introduction to AVhitehall, and all his 
 political advancement. But when, upon the failure of the 
 prosecution against Lord Shaftesbmy, the free municipal 
 constitution of the City became so odious to the government, 
 he heartily entered into the conspiracy to destroy it. It is 
 said, that he actually suggested the scheme of having a sheriff 
 nominated by the Lord Mayor, and he certainly took a very 
 active part in carrying it int-i execution. On Midsum- 
 mer-day, having planted Lord Chief Justice Korth in his 
 house in Aldermanbury that he might be backed by his 
 authority, he himself appeared on the hustings in Guild- 
 hall, and when the poll was going against the Court candi 
 
 P 8 St. Tr. 405. 1 9 St. Tr. 127. 
 
366 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. XCIX. 
 
 dates, illegally advised the Lord Mayor to dissolve the Hall, 
 ■ and afterwards to declare them duly elected. He did every 
 thing in his power to push on and to assist the great Quo 
 Warranto, by which the City was to be entirely disfran- 
 chised. 
 
 When success had crowned these efforts, and Pilkington 
 and Shute, the former sheriffs, with Alderman Cornish and 
 others, were to be tried before a packed jury for a riot at the 
 election, finding that he had the game in his hand, his inso- 
 lence knew no bounds. The defendants having challenged the 
 array, on the ground that the sheriffs who returned the panel 
 were not lawfully appointedj — as soon as the challenge was 
 read he exclaimed, " Here's a tale of a tub indeed!' The 
 counsel for the defendants insisted that the challenge was 
 good in law, and at great length argued for its validity. 
 
 Jeffreys. " Robin Hood 
 
 Upon Greendale stood !" 
 
 Thompson, Counsel for the Defendants. " If the challenge be not 
 good, there must be a defect in it either in point of law, or in 
 point of fact. I pray that the Crown may either demur or 
 traverse." — Jeffreys. " This discourse is only for discourse sake. 
 I pray the jury may be sworn." — Lord Chief Justice Saunders. 
 " Ay, ay, swear the jury." The defendants were, of course, 
 ill found guilty, and as there were among them the most 
 eminent of Jeffreys's old City friends, he exerted himself to the 
 utmost not only in gaining a conviction, but in aggravating 
 the sentence/ 
 
 But this was only a case of misdemeanour, in which he 
 could ask for nothing beyond fine and imprisonment. He 
 was soon to be engaged in prosecutions for high treason 
 against the noblest of the land, in which his savage taste for 
 
 July i3, blood might be gratified. The Ryehouse plot broke 
 
 1683. ou ^ for which there was some foundation, and after 
 the conviction of those who had planned it, Lord Russell was 
 brought to trial at the Old Bailey, on the ground that he had 
 consented to'it. 
 
 Jeffreys, in the late state trials, had gradually been en- 
 croaching on the Attorney and Solicitor-General, Sir Robert 
 Sawyer and Sir Heneage Finch, and in Lord Russell's case, to 
 which the government attached such infinite importance, he 
 almost entirely superseded them. To account for his unex 
 
 r 9 St. Tr. 187. 
 
AJ). 1633. HIS CONDUCT ON THE TRIAL OF LORD RJSSELL. 367 
 
 ampled zeal, we must remember that the office of Chief Justice 
 of the King's Bench was still vacant, Saunders having died a 
 few months before, and Lord Keeper North having strongly 
 opposed the appointment of Jeffreys as his successor. 
 
 Lord Eussell had certainly been present at a meeting of the 
 conspirators, when there was a consultation about seizing the 
 King's guards ; but he insisted that he came in accidentally, 
 that he had taken no part in the conversation, and that he was 
 not acquainted with their plans. The aspirant Chief Justice 
 saw clearly where was the pinch of the case, and the Attorney- 
 General, who was examining Colonel Eumsey, being contented 
 with asking — " ^*as the prisoner at the bar present at the 
 debate ?" and receiving the answer "Yes," — Jeffreys started 
 up, took the witness into his own hands, — and calling upon 
 him to draw the inference which was for the jury, — pinned 
 the basket by this leading and highly irregular question, — 
 " Did you find him averse to it or agreeing to it?" Having 
 got the echoing answer which he suggested, — "agreeing to it" 
 he looked round with exultation and said,—" If my Lord 
 Eussell now pleases to ask any questions, he may ! ' 
 
 Jeffreys addressed the jury in reply after the Solicitor-Gene- 
 ral had finished, and much outdid him in piessing the case 
 against the prisoner, while he disclaimed with horror the en- 
 deavour to take away the life of the innocent. 3 He thus con- 
 cluded : — " You have a Prince, and a merciful one too. Con- 
 sider the life of your Prince, the life of his posterity, the con- 
 sequences that would have attended if this villan} had taken 
 effect. What would have become of your lives and religion ? 
 What would have become of that religion we have been so 
 fond of preserving? Gentlemen, I must put these things 
 home upon your consciences. I know you will remember the 
 horrid murder of the most pious Prince, the Martyr, King 
 Charles I. Let not the greatness of any man corrupt you, 
 but discharge your consciences both to God and the King, and 
 to your posterity." ' 
 
 Jeffreys had all the glory of the verdict of Guilty, and as the 
 Lord Chief Justice Pemberton had rather flinched during this 
 trial, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General were thought men 
 who would cry cravex, and as the next case was not less im- 
 portant and still more ticklish, all objections to the proposed 
 
 • " Jefferies would show his zeal and speak indecent invectives." — Burnet, ii. 216. 
 after him, hut it was only an insolent deela- l 9 St. Tr. 634. • 
 tt»*tion, such as all his were, full of fury and 
 
368 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 elevation of the favourite vanished, and he became Chief 
 Justice of England, as the only man fit to condemn Algernon 
 Sydney." 
 
 CHAPTEK C. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS TILL HE 
 
 RECEIVED THE GREAT SEAL. 
 
 The new Chief Justice was sworn in on the 29th of September, 
 1683, and took his seat in the Court of King's Bench on the 
 first day of the following Michaelmas tenn. x 
 
 Sydney's case was immediately brought on before him in 
 Nov. 7, this Court, the indictment being removed by certiorari 
 1683. from the 0]d Bailey, that it might be under his pe- 
 culiar care. The prisoner wishing to plead some collateral 
 matter, was told by the Chief Justice, that, if overruled, 
 sentence of death would immediately be passed upon him. 
 Though there can be no doubt of the illegality of the convic- 
 tion, the charge against Jeffreys is unfounded, that he admitted 
 the MS. treatise on Government to be read without any evi- 
 dence of its .having been written by the prisoner, beyond 
 "similitude of hands." Two witnesses, who were acquainted 
 with his handwriting from having seen him indorse bills of 
 exchange, swore that they believed it to be his handwriting, 
 and they were corroborated by a third, who, with his privity, 
 
 u Evelyn, Oct. 4,1683. " Sir Geo. Jefferies solved and full of objections against him, as 
 
 was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, that all the Judges would be unsatisfied if he 
 
 but most daring." This is the very day on were so advanced, and that he had not law 
 
 which the diarist saw " the Duchess of Ports- enough." 
 
 mouth in her dressing-room within her bed- x We learn from Burnet the impression 
 
 chamber in her morning loose garment, her made by this appointment on the public 
 
 maids combing her newly out ol bed, his mind. " All people were apprehensive of 
 
 Majesty and the gallants standing about her." very black designs, when they saw Jefferies 
 
 Till the exploit of Lord Russell's conviction made Lord Chief Justice, who was scandal- 
 
 the objections to Jeffreys's appointment as ously vicious and was drunk every day ; 
 
 Chief Justice were so strong that even bsides a drunkenness of fury in his temper 
 
 Charles II. himself would not consent to it. that looked like enthusiasm. He did not 
 
 Extract of letter from Lord Sunderland to consider the decencies of his post; nor did he 
 
 Lord Rochester, dated Newmarket, March so much as affect to seem impartial as became 
 
 10th, 1683: — "Upon the news of my Lord a Judge ; but ran out upon all occasions into 
 
 Chief Justice being ill, I spoke to the King declamations that did not become the bar, 
 
 of Jeffries, but J found him very much unre- much less the bench." — Own Times, ii. 231. 
 
a.D. 1683. HIS CONDUCT ON THE TRIAL OF SYDNEY. 369 
 
 had paid notes purporting to be indorsed by him without 
 any complaint ever being made. But the undeniable and in- 
 effaceable atrocity of the case was the Lord Chief Justice's 
 doctrine, that " scribe re est age re," and that therefore this MS. 
 containing some abstract speculations on different forms of 
 government written many years before, never shown to any 
 human being, and containing nothing beyond the constitutional 
 principles of Locke and Paley, was tantamount to the evidence 
 of a witness to prove an overt act of high treason. " If you be- 
 lieve that this was Colonel Sydney's book, writ by him, no 
 man can doubt that it is a sufficient evidence that he is guilty 
 of compassing and imagining the death of the King. It fixes 
 the whole power in the parliament and the people. The King, 
 it says, is responsible to them ; the King is but their trustee. 
 Gentlemen, 1 must tell you I think I ought more than ordi- 
 narily to press this upon you, because I know the misfortune 
 of the late unhappy rebellion, and the bringing of the late 
 blessed King to the scaffold, was first begun with such kind 
 of principles. They cried he had betrayed the trust that was 
 delegated to him by the people, so that the case rests not upon 
 two but upon greater evidence than twenty-two witnesses, if 
 you believe this book was writ by him." 
 
 The Chief Justice having had the satisfaction of pro- 
 nouncing with his own lips the sentence upon Sydney, of 
 death and mutilation, instead of leaving the task as usual to 
 the senior puisne Judge, — a scene followed which is familiar 
 to every one. — Sydney. "Then, God! O God! I beseech 
 thee to sanctify these sufferings unto me, and impute not my 
 blood to the country ; let no inquisition be made for it,— but 
 if any, — and the shedding of blood that is innocent must be 
 revenged, — let the weight of it fall only upon those that 
 maliciously persecute me for righteousness' sake." — Lord C. J. 
 Jeffreys. " I pray God work in you a temper fit to go unto the 
 other world, for I see you are not fit for this." — Sydney. " My 
 Lord, feel my pulse [holding out his hand], and see if I am 
 disordered. I bless God 1 never was in better temper than 
 I now am." — By order of the Chief Justice, the lieutenant of 
 the Tower immediately removed the prisoner. 
 
 A very few days after, and while this illustrious patriot was 
 still lying under sentence of death, 7 the Lord Chief Justice 
 Jeffreys and Mr. Justice Withins, who sat as his brother 
 Judge or the trial, went to a gay City wedding, where the 
 
 r 5 th Dec. 
 VOL. IV. 2 B 
 
370 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. (J. 
 
 Lord Mayor and other grandees were present. Evelyn, who 
 was of the party, tells us that the Chief and the puisne both 
 " danced with the bride, and were exceeding merry. 5 ' He 
 adds, " These great men spent the rest of the afternoon until 
 eleven at night in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and 
 ralking much beneath the gravity of Judges who had but a 
 day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sydney." z 
 
 The next exhibition in the Court of King's Bench which 
 June u, particularly pleased Jeffreys and horrified the public, 
 1634. was the condemnation of Sir Thomas Armstrong. It 
 will be recollected that this gentleman was outlawed while 
 beyond the seas, and being sent from Holland within the year, 
 nought, according to his clear right in law, to reverse the out- 
 lawry.* I have had occasion to reprobate the conduct of Lord 
 Keeper North in refusing him his writ of error, and suffering 
 his execution ; but Jeffreys may be considered the executioner. 
 When brought up to the King's Bench bar, Armstrong was 
 attended by his daughter, a most beautiful and interesting 
 young woman, who, when the Chief Justice had illegally 
 overruled the plea, and pronounced judgment of death under 
 the outlawry, exclaimed, "My Lord, I hope you will not 
 murder my father." — Chief Justice Jeffreys. " Who is this 
 woman ? Marshal, take her into custody. Why, how now ? 
 Because your relative is attainted for high treason, must you 
 take upon you to tax the courts of justice for murder when 
 we grant execution according to law? Take her away." — 
 Daughter. " God Almighty's judgments light upon you." — 
 Chief Justice Jeffreys. " God Almighty's judgments will light 
 upon those that are guilty of high treason." — Daughter . 
 "Amen. I pray God." — Chief Justice Jeffreys. " So say I. I 
 thank God I am clamour proof." [The daughter is committed 
 to prison, and carried off in custody.] — Sir Thomas Armstrong. 
 " I ought to have the benefit of the law, and I demand no 
 more." — Chief Justice Jeffreys. " That you shall have, by the 
 grace of God. See that execution be done on Friday next, 
 according to law. You shall have the full benefit of the 
 law ! ! ! ' ; Armstrong was hanged, embowelled, beheaded, and 
 quartered accordingly. 
 
 When Jeffreys came to the King at Windsor soon after this 
 T rial, " the King took a ring of good value from his finger and 
 
 z Mem. 530. within a year, he should be discharged of taw 
 
 a Stat. 6 Ed. 6 enacted that if any outlaw outlawry, and entitled to a j-ry. 
 yielded himself to the Chief Justice, Ac 
 
A. D. 19cU. A MEMBER OF THE CABINET. 371 
 
 gave it to him for these services. The ring upon that was 
 called his blood stone." h In the reign of William and Mary, 
 Armstrong's attainder was reversed. Jeffreys was then out uf 
 reach of process, but for the share which Sir Kobert Sawyer 
 had in it as Attorney-General, he was expelled the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 Jeffreys had now the satisfaction of causing an information 
 to be filed against Sir William Williams for having as Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, under the orders of the House, 
 directed the printing of " jDangerfield's Narrative," — the 
 vengeful tyrant thus dealing a blow at once to an old enemy 
 who had reprimanded him on his knees, and to the privileges 
 of the House, equally the object of his detestation. He was 
 in hopes of deciding the case himself, but he left it as a 
 legacy to his successor, Chief Justice Herbert, who, under his 
 auspices, at once overruled the plea, and fined the defendant 
 10,000/. d 
 
 Not only was Jeffreys a Privy Councillor, but he had become 
 a member of the Cabinet, where, from his superior boldness and 
 energy, as well as his more agreeable manners, he had gained 
 a complete victory over Lord Keeper North, whom he de- 
 nounced as a " Trimmer," — and the Great Seal seemed almost 
 within his grasp. 6 To secure it, he still strove to do every 
 thing he could devise to please the Court, as if hitherto 
 nothing base had been done by him. f "When, to his great joy, 
 final judgment was entered up against the City of London on 
 the quo warranto, he undertook to get all the considerable towns 
 in Eno-land to surrender their charters on the threat of similar 
 proceedings; and with this view, in the autumn of 1684, he 
 made " a campaign in the North," which was almost as fatal 
 to corporations as that " in the West," the following year, 
 proved to the lives of men. To show to the public the special 
 credit he enjoyed at Court, the London Gazette, just before he set 
 out, in reference to the gift bestowed upon him for the judgment 
 against Sir Thomas Armstrong, announced " that his Majesty, 
 as a mark of his royal favour, had taken a ring from his own 
 
 b Burn. Own Times, i. 580. "The King d 13 St. Tr. 1436. 2 Shower, 471. Lord 
 
 accompanied the gift with a piece of advice Campbell's Speeches, 284. 
 
 somewhat extraordinary from a King to a e For the disputes between them, see ante. 
 
 Judge : ' My Lord, as it is a hot summer, and p. 323. 
 
 you are going the circuit, I desire you will not f " In omnia prasceps, 
 
 drink too much: " Nil actum credens, dum quid supere^i 
 
 c lOSt. Tr. 105. See a beautiful reference agendum,^ 
 
 to this case by Lord Erskine, in defending Instat alrdx - 
 Harciv. 24 St. Tr. 944. 
 
 . 2b2 
 
372 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C 
 
 finger and placed it on that of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys." 
 In consequence, although when on the circuit he forgot the 
 caution against hard drinking, with which the gift had been 
 accompanied, he carried everything before hirn, — "charters 
 full like the walls of Jericho," g and he returned laden with 
 his hyperborean spoils. 
 
 I have already related the clutch at the Great Seal which 
 he then made, and his temporary disappointment. 1 ' He was 
 contented to " bide his time." There were only two other oc- 
 casions when he had it in his power to pervert the law, for the 
 purpose of pleasing the Court, during the present reign. The 
 first was on the tidal of Hampden, the grandson of the great 
 Hampden, for a trifling misdemeanour. Although this young 
 gentleman was only heir apparent to a moderate estate, and 
 not in possession of any property, he was sentenced to pay a 
 fine of 40,000/., — Jeffreys saying that the clause in Magna 
 Charta, " Liber homo non amercietur pro niagno delicto nisi 
 salvo contenemento suo," does not apply to fines imposed by 
 the King's Judges. 1 — The other was the inquisition in the 
 action of scan. mag. brought by the Duke of York against 
 Titus Oates, in which the jury, under his direction, awarded 
 100,000?. damages. k 
 
 Ever since the disfranchisement of the City of London, the 
 Ex-Becorder had ruled it with a rod of iron. He set up a 
 nominal Lord Mayor and nominal Aldermen ; but, as they 
 were entirely dependent upon him, he treated them with con- 
 tinual insolence. m 
 
 On the sudden death of Charles II., Jeffreys no doubt 
 
 thought the period was arrived when he must be 
 
 rewarded for the peculiar zeal with which he had 
 
 abandoned himself to the service of the successor ; but he 
 
 was at first disappointed, and he had still to " wade through 
 
 slaughter " to the seat he so much coveted. 
 
 S Wool. 103, 101. h Ante, p. 323. Mayor, says: "This gentleman complained 
 
 i 9 St. Tr. 1125. to me that he enjoyed no more than the bare 
 
 '« 10 St. Tr. 125. It is cnrious to obsfrve title of Lord Mayor, the Lord Chief Justice 
 
 that, in this case, after judijment by default, Jeffries usurping the power; that the City 
 
 the inquisition being before the Court of King's had no sort of intercourse with the King but 
 
 Bench in banco, the Sheriffs of Middlesex by the intervention of that Lord, and that 
 
 attending in person, sat covered before the himself and the aldermen were looked upon 
 
 Judges, and the counsel began their speeches, by the Court as no better than his tools; that 
 
 ' .May it please your Lordships, you Mr. upon all occasions his Lordship was so for- 
 
 Sheriffs, and gentlemen of the Jury." getful of the high dignity of the City, as to 
 
 m Sir John Reresby, giving an account oi use him and his brethren with contempt."—- 
 
 Ms dining with Sir James Smith, the Lord Jieresb. Mtm. 207. 
 
A.D. 1685. TRIALS OF TITUS OATES AND RICHARD BAXTER. 373 
 
 Not dismayed, lie resolved to act on two principles : 1st, If 
 possible, to outdo himself in pleasing his master, whose arbi- 
 trary and cruel disposition became more apparent from the 
 hour that he mounted the throne. 2ndlv, To leave no effort 
 untried to discredit, disgrace, disgust, and break the heart of 
 the man who stood between him and his object. 
 
 Being confirmed in the office of Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench, he began with the trial for perjury of Titus Oates, — 
 whose veracitv he had often maintained, but with whom he had 
 a personal quarrel, and whom he now held up to reprobation, 
 — depriving him of all chance of acquittal. The defendant was 
 found guilty on two indictments, and the verdict on both was 
 probably correct ; but what is to be said for the sentence ? — 
 " To pay on each indictment a fine of 1000 marks ; to be stripped 
 of all his canonical habits ; to be imprisoned for life ; to stand 
 in the pillory on the following Monday, with a paper over his 
 head, declaring his crime ; next day to stand in the pillory at 
 the Royal Exchange, with the same inscription ; on the Wed- 
 nesday to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate ; on the Fri- 
 day to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn ; upon the 24th of 
 April in every year, during life, to stand in the pillory at Ty- 
 burn opposite the gallows ; on the 9th of August in eveiy year 
 to stand in the pillory opposite Westminster Hall Gate ; on the 
 10th of August in every year to stand in the pillory at Charing 
 Cross ; and the like on the following day at Temple Bar ; and 
 the like on the 2nd of September, every year, at the Royal 
 Exchange ;" — the Court expressing deep regret that they could 
 not do more, as they would " not have been unwilling to have 
 given judgment of death upon him." n 
 
 Next came the trial of Richard Baxter, the pious and learned 
 Presbvterian divine, who had actually said, and adhered to 
 the saying, " Nolo episcopal!," and who was now prosecuted 
 for a libel, because in a book on church government he had 
 reflected on the Church of Rome in words which might pos- 
 sibly be applied to the Bishops of the Church of England. No 
 such reference was intended by him ; and he was known not 
 only to be of exemplary private character, but to be warmly 
 attached to monarchy, and always inclined to moderate mea- 
 sures in the differences between the established chuich and 
 those of his own persuasion. Yet. when he pleaded net guilty, 
 and prayed on account of ill health, that his trial might be 
 postponed, Jeffreys exclaimed, " Not a minute more to save 
 
 n 10 St. Tr. 1315. ° Fox's Hist. James, ii. 96 
 
374 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C 
 
 his life. We have had to do with other sort of persons, hut 
 now we have a Saint to deal with ; and I know how to deal 
 with Saints as well as Sinners. Yonder stands Oates in the 
 pillory, [Oates was 'at that moment suffering part of his 
 sentence in Palace Yard, outside the great gate of Westmin- 
 ster Hall,] and he says he suffers for the truth ; and so says 
 Baxter ; but if Baxter did but stand on the outside of the pil- 
 ory with him, I would say two of the greatest rogues and rascals 
 in the kingdom stood there together." Having silenced the defend- 
 ant's counsel by almost incredible rudeness, the defendant 
 himself wished to speak, when the Chief Justice burst out, 
 " Bichard, Richard, thou art an old fellow and an old knave ; 
 thou hast written books enough to load a cart ; every one is as 
 full of sedition, I might say treason, as an egg is full of meat ; 
 haclst thou been whipt out of thy writing trade forty years ago, 
 it had been happy. Thou pretendest to be a preacher of the 
 gospel of peace, and thou hast one foot in the grave ; it is time 
 for thee to begin to think what account thou intendest to give ; 
 but leave thee to thyself, and I see thou wilt go on as thou 
 hast begun ; but, by the grace of God, I'll look after thee. 
 Gentlemen of the jury, he is now modest enough ; but time 
 was when no man was so ready at Bind your Kings in chains, and 
 your nobles in fetters of iron, crying, To your tents, Israel I Gen- 
 tlemen, for God's sake do not let us be gulled twice in an age." 
 The defendant was, of course, found guilty, and thought him- 
 self lucky to escape with a fine of TOO/., and giving security for 
 his good behaviour for seven years. p 
 
 The Lord Chief Justice, for his own demerits, and to thrust 
 a thorn into the side of Lord Keeper Guilford, was now raised 
 to the peerage by the title of " Baron Jeffreys of Wem," — the 
 preamble of his patent narrating his former promotions — 
 averring that they were the reward of virtue, — and after the 
 statement of his being appointed to preside in the Court of 
 Kings Bench, adding, " ubi etiamnum justitiam et tutelam 
 subditis nostiis ad normam legis intrepide et fideliter admini- 
 strans : quarum ejus virtutum intuitu eum inter pares hujus 
 regni cooptandum esse censuimus," &c. 
 
 He took his seat in the House of Lords on the first day of 
 (he meeting of James's only parliament, along with nineteen 
 others either raised in the peerage or newly created since the 
 dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, — the junior being John 
 Lord Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough. The Jour 
 
 P 11 St. Tr. 495. 3 Mud. Rep. 68. 
 
A.1X 1685. HIS CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST. 375 
 
 rials show that Lord Jeffreys was very regular in his attendance 
 during the session, and as the House sat daily and still met at 
 the same early hour as the Courts of law, he must generally 
 have left the business of the King's Bench to be transacted by 
 the other Judges. He was now occupied day and night with 
 plans for pushing the already disgraced Lord Keeper from the 
 woolsack. 
 
 I have already, in the Life of Lord Guilford, related how 
 these plans were conducted in the Cabinet, in the royal circle 
 at Whitehall, and in the House of Lords, — particularly the 
 savage treatment which the li staggering statesman"' received 
 on the reversal of his decree in Howards. Duke of Norfolk, after 
 which he never held up his head more. q The probability is, 
 that although he clung to office so pusillanimously in the midst 
 of all sorts of slights and indignities, he would now have been 
 forcibly ejected if his death had not appeared to be near at 
 hand, and if there had not been a demand for the services of 
 " Judge Jeffreys " in a scene very different from the drowsy 
 tranquillity of the Court of Chancery. 
 
 By the month of July jlonmouth's rebellion had been put 
 down, and he himself had been executed upon his parlia- 
 mentary attainder without the trouble of a trial ; but all the 
 gaols in the West of England were crowded with his adhe- 
 rents, and, instead of Colonel Kirke doing military execution 
 on more of them than had already suffered from his " Lambs," 
 it was resolved that they should all perish by the flaming 
 sword of justice, — which, on such an occasion, there was only 
 one man fit to wield. 
 
 No assizes had been held this summer on the Western cir- 
 cuit ; but for all the counties upon it a special Commission to 
 try criminals was now appointed,— at the head of which Lord 
 Chief Justice Jeffreys was put ; — and by a second Commission, 
 he, singly, was invested with the authority of Commander-in- 
 Chief over all his Majesty's forces within the same limits/ 
 
 On entering Hampshire he was met by a brigade of soldiers, 
 
 * Ante, p. 328 et seq. From the slight would not belong in that situation, and many 
 
 passed upon the Lord Guilford at the open- believe the bold Chief Justice Jefferies, who 
 
 ing of the session, and the elevation of was made Baron of Wem, in Shropshire, and 
 
 Jeffreys to the peerage, a speedy transfer of who went thurrough stitch in that tribunal, 
 
 the Great Seal seems to have been generally stands fair for that office. I gave him joy 
 
 anticipated. Evelyn, in his Memoirs under the morning before of his new honour, he 
 
 May 22, 1685, after giving an account of the having been always very civil to me." 
 
 meeting of parliament, thus proceeds: "There * There is preservtd in the War Office an 
 
 was no speech made by the Lord Keeper after order datfd 24th August, 1685, for furnishing 
 
 hi.- Majesty as usual. It was whispered he horse and foot at his request. 
 
370 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 by wliom he was guarded to Winchester. During the rest of 
 his progress he never moved without a military escort ; — he 
 daily gave the word; — orders for going the rounds, and for 
 the general disposal of the troops, were dictated by him, — sen- 
 tinels mounting guard at his lodgings, and the officers on duty 
 sending him their reports. 
 
 I desire at once to save my readers from the apprehension 
 that I am about to shock their humane feelings by a detailed 
 statement of .the atrocities of this bloody campaign in the West, 
 the character of which is familiar to everv Eno-lishnian. But, 
 as a specimen of it, I must present a short account of the 
 treatment experienced by Lady Lisle, with whose murder ii 
 commenced. 
 
 She was the widow of Major Lisle, who had sat in judgment 
 on Charles I., had been a Lord Commissioner of the Great 
 Seal under Ciomwell, and, flying on the Eestoration, had been 
 assassinated at Lausanne. 5 She remained in England, and was 
 remarkable for her loyalty as well as piety. Jeffreys's malig- 
 nant spi e against her is wholly inexplicable ; for he had 
 never had any personal quarrel w T ith her, she did not stand in 
 the way of his promotion, and the circumstance of her being 
 the widow of a regicide cannot account for his vindictive- 
 ness. Perhaps without any personal dislike to the individual, 
 he merely wished to strike terror into the West by his first 
 operation. 
 
 The charge against her, which was laid capitally, was that 
 after the battle of Sedgemoor she had harboured in her house 
 one Hickes, who had been in arms with the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth, — she knowing of his treason. 1 In truth she had received 
 him into her house, — thinking merely that he was persecuted 
 as a non-conformist minister, and the moment she knew 
 whence he came, she (conveying to him a hint that he should 
 escape) sent her servant to a justice of peace to give informa- 
 tion concerning him. There was the greatest difficulty even 
 to show that Hickes had been in the rebellion, and the Judge 
 was worked up to a pitch of fury by being obliged himself to 
 cross-examine a Presbyterian witness, who had showed a lean- 
 ing against the prosecution. But the principal traitor had not 
 been convicted, and there was not a particle of evidence to 
 show the scienter, i. e. that the supposed accomplice, at the time 
 
 8 Ante, vol. iii., p. 365 et seq. respect to him there was not the shadow of j 
 
 t Another person of the name of Xelthorp case made out in evidence.— 11 St. Tr. 29" . 
 was mentioned in the indictment ; but with 
 
A.D. 1685. TRIAL OF LAD1 LISLE. 377 
 
 of the harbouring, was acquainted with the treason. Kot 
 allowed the benefit of counsel, she herself, prompted by natural 
 gocd sense, took the legal objection that the principal traitor 
 ought first to have been convicted, " because, peradventnre, 
 he might afterwards be acquitted as innocent after she had 
 been condemned for harbouring him ; " and she urged with 
 great force to the jury, " that at the time of the alleged offence 
 she had been entirely ignorant of any suspicion of Hickes 
 having participated in the rebellion ; that she had strongly 
 disapproved of it, and that she had seat her only son into the 
 field to fight under the royal banner to suppress it." 
 
 It is said by almost all the contemporary authorities, that 
 thrice did the Jtny refuse to find a verdict of guilty, and thrice 
 did Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys send them back to reconsider 
 their verdict." In the account of the proceeding in the State 
 Trials, which has the appearance of having been taken in 
 short-hand, and of being authentic, the repeated sending back 
 of the Jury is not mentioned ; but enough appears to stamp 
 eternal infamy on Jeffreys, if there were nothing more extant 
 against him. After a most furious summing up, " the Jury 
 withdrew, and staying out awhile, the Lord Jeffreys expressed 
 a great deal of impatience, and said he wondered that in so 
 plain a case they would go from the bar, and would have sent 
 for them, with an intimation that, if they did not come quickly, 
 he would adjourn, and let them lie by it all night ; but, after 
 about half an hour's stay, the Jury returned, and the foreman 
 addressed himself to the Court thus : ' My Lord, we have one 
 thing to beg of your Lordship some directions in before we 
 can give our verdict : we have some doubt whether there be 
 sufficient evidence that she knew Hickes to have been in the 
 army.' — L. C. J. ' There is as full proof as proof can be ; but 
 you are judges of the proof ; for my part I thought there was 
 no difficulty in it.' — Foreman. ' My Lord, we are in some 
 doubt of it.' — L. C. J. ' I cannot help your doubts : was there 
 not proved a discourse of the battle and the army at supper 
 time?' — Foreman. 'But, my Lord, we are not satisfied that 
 she had notice that Hickes was in the armv.' — L. C. J. 'I 
 cannot tell what would satisfy you. Did she not inquire of 
 Dunne whether Hickes had been in the armv ? and when he 
 told her he did not know, she did not say she would refuse him if 
 he had been there, but ordered him tc come by night, by which 
 
 u See Coke's Detection, ii. 1719. Kennet, iii. 433. Eapin, v. 750. Oldmixon, 1. 706 
 bchard. 1068. Ralph, i. 889. 
 
378 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 it is evident she suspected it. . . . But if there were no such 
 proof, the circumstances and management of the thing is as 
 full a proof as can be. I wonder what it is you doubt of.' — 
 
 —Lady Lisle. « My Lord, I hope ' — L. C. J. ' You 
 
 must not speak now.' — The Jury laid their heads together 
 near a quarter of an hour, and then pronounced a verdict of 
 Guilty. — L. C. J. ' Gentlemen, I did not think I should have 
 had any occasion to speak after your verdict ; but finding 
 some hesitancy and doubt among you, 1 cannot but say I 
 wonder it should come about ; for 1 think in my conscience 
 the evidence was as full and plain as could be, and if I had 
 been among you, and she had been my own mother, I should 
 have found her guilty.' " 
 
 He passed sentence upon her with great sang froid, and, I 
 really believe, would have done the same had she been the 
 mother that bore him, — " That you be conveyed from hence to 
 the place from whence you came, and from thence you are to 
 be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where your 
 body is to be burnt alive till you be dead. And the Lord have 
 mercy on your soul." 
 
 The King refused the most earnest applications to save her 
 life, saying that he had promised Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys 
 not to pardon her ; but, by a mild exercise of the prerogative, 
 he changed the punishment of burning into that of beheading, 
 — which she actually underwent. After the Revolution her 
 attainder was reversed by act of parliament, on the ground 
 that " the verdict was injuriously extorted by the menaces and 
 violence and other illegal practices of George Lord Jeffreys, 
 Baron of Wem, then Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench." 
 
 From Winchester the " Lord General Judge " proceeded 
 to Salisbury, where he was obliged to content himself with 
 whippings and imprisonments for indiscreet words, the Wilt- 
 shire men not having actually joined in the insurrection. But 
 when he got into Dorsetshire, the county in which Monmouth 
 had landed, and where many had joined his standard, he was 
 fatigued, if not satiated, with shedding blood. Great alarm 
 was excited, and not without reason, by his being seen to 
 laugh in church, both during the prayers and sermon which 
 preceded the commencement of business in the Hall, — his 
 smile being construed into a sign that he was about " to 
 breathe death like a destroying angel, and to sanguine his very 
 ermine in blood." y His charge to the Grand Jurv threw the 
 
 * 11 St Tr. 381. Stat. 1 W. & M. 7 Wool. 200. 
 
A. D. 1685. 
 
 NEWS OF LORD GUILFORD'S DEATH. 
 
 Of. O 
 
 whole county into a state of consternation : for he said he was 
 determined to exercise the utmost rigour of the law, not only 
 against principal traitors, but all aiders and abettors, who, by 
 any expression, had encouraged the rebellion, or had favoured 
 the escape of any engaged in it, however nearly related to 
 them, — unless it were the harbouring of a husband by a wife, 
 which the wif-dom of our ancestors permitted because she had 
 sworn to obey him. 
 
 Bills of indictment for high treason were found by the 
 hundred, often without evidence, the Grand Jury being afraid 
 that, if they were at all scrupulous, they themselves might be 
 brought in " aiders and abettors." — It happened, curiously 
 enough, that as he was about to arraign the prisoners, he re- 
 ceived news, by express, that the Lord Keeper Guilford had 
 breathed his last at Wroxton, in Oxfordshire. He had little 
 doubt that he should himself be the successor, and very soon 
 after, by a messenger from Windsor, he received assurances to 
 that effect, with orders ' ' to finish the King's business in the 
 West." Although he had no ground for serious misgivings, 
 he could not but feel a little uneasy at the thought of the 
 intrigues which in his absence might spring up against him in 
 a corrupt Court, and he was impatient to take possession of his 
 new dignity. But what a prospect before him, if all the pri- 
 soners against whom there might be indictments, here and at 
 -other places, should plead " not guilty," and seriatim take their 
 trials ! He resorted to an expedient worthy of his genius by 
 openly proclaiming, in terms of vague promise but certain 
 denunciation, that " if any of those indicted would relent from 
 their conspiracies, and plead g-uilty, they should find him to be 
 a merciful Judge ; but that those who put themselves on their 
 trials, (which the law mercifully gave them all, in strictness, 
 a right to do,) if found guilty, would have very little time to 
 live ; and, therefore, that such as were conscious they had no 
 defence, had better spare him the trouble of trying them." z 
 
 1 " He bid 'um to confess, if e'er they hope 
 To be reprieved from the fatal rope : 
 This seem'd a favour, but he'd none 
 
 forgive; 
 The favour was a day or two to live, — 
 Which those had not that troubled him 
 
 with tryal, 
 ni? business blood, and would have no 
 
 denyaL 
 Iwo hundred he could sentence in an 
 
 hour,'' &c 
 
 Jeffreys' 's Elegy. 
 
 " The prisoners to plead to his Lordship 
 did cry, 
 But still he made answer and thus did 
 
 reply : 
 'We'll hang you up first, and then after 
 we'll try.' 
 Sing hey, brave Chancellor I 0, fine 
 Chancellor ! 
 Delicate Chancellor, !" 
 Song on Chancellor JefTrryu, to the tun« 
 
 of " Hey brave Popery." 
 See 11 St. Tr. 302. Wool. 203. 
 
380 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 He was at first disappointed. The prisoners knew the 
 sternness of the Judge, and had some hope from the mercy of 
 their countrymen on the Jury. The result of this boldness is 
 soon told. He began on a Saturday morning, with a batch of 
 thirty. Of these only one was acquitted for want of evidence, 
 and the same evening he signed a warrant to hang thirteen of 
 those convicted on the Monday morning, and the rest the 
 following day. An impressive defence was made by the 
 constable of Chardstock, charged with supplying the Duke of 
 Monmouth's soldiers with money, — whereas they had actually 
 robbed him of a considerable sum, which he had in his hands 
 for- the use of the militia. The prisoner having objected to 
 the competency of a witness called against him, "Villain! 
 Eebel!" exclaimed the Judge, " methinks I see thee already 
 with a halter about thy neck." And he was specially ordered 
 to be hanged the first, — my Lord jeeringly declaring, " that 
 if any with a knowledge of the law came in his way, he 
 should take care to prefer them /" 
 
 On the Monday morning, the Court sitting rather late on 
 account of the executions, the Judge, on taking his place, 
 found many applications to withdraw the plea of Not. Guilty, 
 and the prisoners pleaded Guilty in great numbers ; but his ire 
 was kindled, and he would not even affect any semblance of 
 mercy. Two hundred and ninety-two more received judg- 
 ment to die, and of these seventy -four actually suffered, — 
 some being sent to be executed in every town, and almost in 
 every village, for many miles round. While the whole 
 county was covered with the gibbeted quarters of human 
 beings, the towns resounded with the cries of men and even of 
 women and children who were cruelly whipped fur sedition, on 
 the ground that by words or looks they had favoured the 
 insurrection. The case of John Tutchin, afterwards the noted 
 political writer satirised by Pope, may be taken as a specimen 
 of these minor cruelties. He was tried at Dorchester, on the 
 charge of having said " Hampshire is up in arms for the Duke 
 of Monmouth," and on his conviction, was sentenced to be 
 whipped through every market town in the county for seven 
 years. One of the officers of the court called forth the re- 
 sentment of the Judge, by venturing to observe, that " the 
 culprit was very } r oung, and that the sentence would reach to 
 once a fortnight for seven years," and the unhappy youth him- 
 self in vain petitioned for the more lenient punishment of the 
 gallows. Luckily for him be was seized with the small pox ir 
 
A.D. 1685. TRIALS IN DEVOX AND SOMERSET. 38l 
 
 prison, and discharged, — to prevent the spreading of the 
 contagion. — so that he was not " flagrant from the scourge" 
 till a succeeding reign. 
 
 Jeffreys next proceeded to Exeter, where one John Fower- 
 acres, the first prisoner arraigned, had the temerity to plead 
 Aot guilty, and being speedily convicted, was sent to instant 
 execution. This had the desired effect ; for all the others con- 
 fessed, and his Lordship was saved the trouble of trying them. 
 Only thirty-seven suffered capitally in the county of Devon, 
 the rest of the two hundred and forty-three against whom indict- 
 ments were found being transported, whipped, or imprisoned. 
 
 Somersetshire afforded a much finer field for indulging the 
 propensities of the Chief Justice, as in this county there had 
 not only been a considerable rising of armed men for Mon- 
 mouth, but processions, — in which women and children had 
 joined, carrying ribands, boughs, and garlands to his honour. 
 There were five hundred prisoners for trial at Taunton alone. 
 Jeffreys said in his charge to the Grand Jury, "it would not 
 be his fault if he did not purify the place." The first person 
 tried before him here was Simon Hamling, a dissenter of a 
 class to whom the Judge bore a particular enmity. In reality, 
 the accused had only come to Taunton, during the rebellion, 
 to warn his son, who resided there, to remain neuter. Con- 
 scious of his innocence, he insisted on pleading Nob guilty ; he 
 called witnesses, and made a resolute defence, — which was 
 considered great presumption. The committing magistrate, 
 who was sitting on the bench, at last interposed, and said 
 " There must certainly be some mistake about the individual." 
 — Jeffreys. " You have brought him here, and, if he be inno- 
 cent, his blood be upon your head." The prisoner was found 
 guilty, and ordered for execution next morning. Few after- 
 wards gave his Lordship the trouble of trying them, and one 
 hundred and forty-three are said here to have been ordered for 
 execution, and two hundred and eighty-four to have been 
 sentenced to transportation for life. He particularly piqued 
 himself upon his Son mot in passing sentence on one Hucher, 
 who pleaded, in mitigation, that, though he -had joined the 
 Duke of Monmouth, he had sent important information to the 
 King's general, the Earl of Fever>ham. "You deserve a 
 double death/' said the impartial Judge ; — " one for rebelling 
 against vour Sovereign, and the other for betraying your 
 r riends." a 
 
 a Toulmin's History of Taunton, 162. 529. 
 
382 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 He showed great ingenuity in revenging himself upon such 
 as betrayed any disapprobation of his severities. Among 
 these was Lord Stawell, who was so much shocked with what 
 he had heard of the Chief Justice, that he refused to see him. 
 Immediately after, there came forth an order that Colonel 
 Bovet, of Taunton, a friend to whom this Cavalier nobleman 
 had been much attached, should be executed at Cotheleston, 
 close by the house where he and Lady Stawell and his children 
 then resided. 
 
 A considerable harvest here arose from compositions levied 
 upon the friends of twenty-six young virgins who presented 
 the invader with colours, which they had embroidered with 
 their own hands. The fund was ostensibly for the benefit of 
 " the Queen's maids of honour," but a strong suspicion arose 
 that the Chief Justice participated in bribes for these as well 
 as other pardons. He thought that his pecnUum was encroached 
 upon by a letter from Lord Sunderland, informing him of " the 
 King's pleasure to bestow one thousand convicts on several 
 courtiers and one hundred on a favourite of the Queen, — 
 security being given that the prisoners should be enslaved for 
 ten years in some West India island." In his remonstrance 
 he said that "these convicts would be worth ten or fifteen 
 pounds a-piece," and, with a view to his own claim, returned 
 thanks for his Majesty's gracious acceptance of his services. 
 However, he was obliged to submit to the royal distribution of 
 the spoil. b 
 
 Where the King did not personally interfere, Jeffreys was 
 generally inexorable if he did not himseif receive the bribe for 
 a pardon. Kiffin, a Nonconformist merchant, had agreed to 
 give 3000/. to a courtier for the pardon of two youths, his 
 grandsons, who had been in Monmouth's army ; but the Chief 
 Justice would listen to no circumstances of mitigation, as 
 another was to pocket the price of mercy. c Yet, to a buffoon 
 who attended him on the circuit and made sport by his 
 mimickry, — in an hour of revelry at Taunton, he tossed the 
 pardon of a rich culprit, expressing a hope " that it might 
 turn to good account." 
 
 The gaols at Taunton being incapable of containing all the 
 prisoners, it was necessary to adjourn the Commission to 
 Wells, where the same horrible scenes were again acted, not- 
 withstanding the humane exertions of that most honourable 
 man, Bishop Ken, who afterwards, having been one of the 
 
 b Letters in State Paper Office, 14, 15, 19, 22 Sept. 1685. c Kiffin's Memoirs, p. 54 
 
A.D. 1685. 
 
 AT BRISTOL. 383 
 
 seven Bishops prosecuted by King James, resigned his see at 
 the Revolution, rather than sign the new tests. 
 
 The Cornishmen had all remained loyal, and the city of 
 Bristol only remained to be visited by the Commission. There 
 were not many cases of treason here, but Jeffreys had a 
 particular spite against the Corporation magistrates, because 
 they were supposed to favour-dissenters, and he had them very 
 much in his power by a discovery he made, that they had 
 been in the habit of having in turn assigned to them prisoners 
 charged with felony, whom they sold for their own benefit to 
 be transported to Barbadoes. In addressing the Grand Jury, 
 (while he complained of a fit of the stone, and was seemingly 
 under the excitement of liquor,) he said, — 
 
 " I find a special Commission is an unusual thing here, and relishes 
 very ill ; nay, the very women storm at it, for fear we should take the 
 upper hand of them too : for by-the-bye, Gentlemen, I hear it is much 
 in fashion in this city for the women to govern and hear sway." 
 Having praised the mild and paternal rule of King James, he thus pro- 
 ceeded, — "On the other hand, up starts a puppet Prince who seduces 
 the mobile into rebellion, into which they are easily bewitched ; fori 
 say, rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. This man, who had as 
 little title to the Crown as the least of you (for I hope you are all 
 legitimate), being overtaken by justice, and by the goodness of his 
 Prince brought to the scaffold, he has the confidence (good God, that 
 men should be so impudent !) to say that God Almighty did know with 
 what joyfulness he did die (a traitor !). Great God of heaven and 
 earth ! what reason have men to rebel ? But, as I told you, rebellion is 
 like the sin of witchcraft : Fear Ood and honour the King is rejected 
 for no other reason, as I can find, but that it is written in St. Peter. 
 Gentlemen, T must tell you, I am afraid that this city hath too many of 
 these people in it, and it is your duty to find them out. Gentlemen, I 
 shall not stand complimenting with you : I shall talk with some of you 
 before you and I part, I tell you : I tell you I have brought a besom, 
 and I will sweep every man's door, whether great or small. Certainly 
 here are a great many of those men whom they call Trimmers : a Whig 
 is but a mere fool to those ; for a Whig is some sort of a subject in 
 comparison of these ; for a Trimmer is but a cowardly and base-spirited 
 Whig ; for the Whig is but the journeyman prentice that is hired and 
 set over the rebellion, whilst the Trimmer is afraid to appear in the 
 cause." He then opens his charge against the Aldermen for the sale of 
 convicts, and thus continues : " Good God ! where am I ? — in Bristol ? 
 This city it seems claims the privilege of hanging and drawing among 
 themselves. I find you have more need of a special commission once a 
 month at least. The very magistrates, that should be the ministers of 
 justice, fall out with one another to that degree they will scarcely dine 
 together ; yet I find they can agree for their interest if there be but a 
 
384 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 kid in the case ; for I hear the trade of kidnapping is much in request 
 in this city. You can discharge a felon or a traitor, provided they wi 11 
 go to Mr. Alderman's plantation in the West Indies. Come, come, T 
 find you stink for want of rubbing. It seems the dissenters and fanatics 
 fare well amongst you, by reason of the favour of the magistrates ; for 
 example, if a dissenter who is a notorious and obstinate offender comes 
 before them, one alderman or another stands up and says, lit is a good 
 man (though three parts a rebel). Well then, for the sake of Mr. 
 Alderman, he shall be fined but five shillings. Then comes another, 
 and up stands another goodman Alderman, and says, I know him to be 
 an honest man (though rather worse than the former). Well, for Mr. 
 Alderman's sake, he shall be fined but half-a-crown ; so manus manum 
 fricat ; you play the knave for me now, and I will play the knave for 
 you by-and-by. I am ashamed of these things, but, by God's grace, I 
 will mend them : for, as I have told you, I have brought a brush in my 
 pocket, and I shall be sure to rub the dirt wherever it is, or on whom- 
 soever it sticks." "Thereupon," says Eoger North, " he turns to the 
 Mayor, accoutred with his scarlet and furs, and gave him all the ill 
 names that scolding eloquence could supply ; and so, with rating and 
 staring as his way was, never left till he made him quit the bench and 
 go down to the criminal's post at the bar ; and there be pleaded for 
 himself as a common rogue or thief must have done ; and when the 
 Mayor hesitated a little, or slackened his pace, he bawled at him, and 
 stamping, called for his guards, for he was still general by commission. 
 Thus the citizens saw their scarlet chief magistrate at the bar, to their 
 infinite terror and amazement." d 
 
 Only three were executed for treason at Bristol, but Jeffreys 
 looking at the end of his campaign to the returns of the enemy 
 killed, had the satisfaction to find that they amounted to 330, — 
 besides 800 prisoners ordered to be transported. 6 
 
 He now hastened homewards to pounce upon the Great 
 Seal. In his way "through Somersetshire with a regiment of 
 dragoons as his life-guards, the Major took the liberty to say 
 that there were two tipokis who had been convicted, and that 
 one of these left for execution was not the one intended to 
 suffer, the other having contrived to make his escape, and that 
 favour might perhaps still be shown to him whom it was 
 intended to pardon. "No!" said the General-Judge; "his 
 familv owe a life — he shall die for his namesake !" To render 
 such narratives credible, we must, recollect that his mind was 
 often greatly disturbed by fits of the stone, and still more by 
 
 d Life of Guilford, ii. 113. Wool. 225. plantations men whom they had unjustly 
 
 e In a letter from Bristol dated 22nd Sept. convicted with a view to such a sale, and 
 
 1685, he boasts of his victory over that most pledges himself that Bristol and the county 
 
 factious city, where he had committed the . of Somerset should know their duty both 10 
 
 mayor and an alderman for selling to the God and their King before he leaves them. 
 
A.D. 1685. BLAMED FOR BEING TOO MERCIFl'L. 385 
 
 intemperance. Burnet, speaking of his behaviour at this 
 time, says, " He was perpetually either drank or in a rage, 
 liker a fury than the zeal of a Judge." f 
 
 I shall conclude my sketch of Jeffreys as a Ciiminal Judge 
 with his treatment of a prisoner whom he was eager to hang, 
 but who escaped with life. This was Prideaux, a gentleman 
 of fortune in the West of England, who had been apprehended 
 on the landing of Monmouth, for no other reason than that his 
 father had been Attorney-General under Cromwell. A reward 
 of 500?., with a free pardon, was offered to any witnesses who 
 would give evidence against him ; but none could be found, 
 and he was discharged. Afterwards two convicts were pre- 
 vailed upon to say that they had seen him take some part in 
 the insurrection, and he was again cast into prison. His 
 friends, alarmed for his safety, though convinced of his inno- 
 cence, tried to procure a pardon for him, when they were told 
 "that nothing could be done for him, as the King had given 
 him to the Chief Justice " (the familiar phrase for the grant of 
 an estate about to be forfeited). A negotiation was then 
 opened with Jennings, the avowed agent of Jeffreys for the 
 sale of pardons, — and the sum of 15,000/. was actually paid tc 
 him by a banker for the deliverance of a man whose destruc- 
 tion could not be effected by any perversion of the formalities 
 of law. g 
 
 There is to be found only one defender of these atrocities. 
 "I have indeed sometimes thought," says the author of A 
 Caveat against the Whigs, " that in Jeffreys's Western cir- 
 cuit justice went too far before mercy was remembered, though 
 there was not above a fourth part executed of what were con- 
 victed. But when I consider in what manner several of those 
 lives then spared were afterwards spent, I cannot but think a 
 little more hemp might have been usefully employed upon that 
 occasion." 
 
 A great controversy has arisen, " who is chiefly to be blamed 
 — Jeffreys or James?" Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, de- 
 clares that "the King never forgave the cruelty of the Judge 
 in executing such multitudes in the West against his express 
 orders." Pere d'Orleans says, " Le Eoi fut trop tard averti de 
 ce desordre, mais on ne Ten eut pas plustot informe qu'il en 
 temoigna de l'indignation ; et si des services importans, qu'il 
 avoit recu de ceux qui en etoient accusez, l'obligea de lea 
 epargner, il repara autant qu'il put leur injustice, par le 
 
 f Burnet, ii. 334. ° Commons' Journals, May 1, 1689, 
 
 VOL. IV. 2 C 
 
386 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C. 
 
 pardon general qu'il accorda a ceux des revoltez qui etoient 
 encore en etat d'eprouver les effets de sa cleinence." And re- 
 liance is placed by Hume h on the assertion of Eoger North, 
 that his brother, the Lord Keeper, going to the King and 
 moving him "to put a stop to the fury which was in no 
 respect for his service, and would be counted a carnage, not 
 law or justice, — orders went to mitigate the proceeding." 
 
 I have already demonstrated that this last assertion is a 
 mere invention," — and though it is easy to fix deep guilt on 
 the Judge, it is impossible to exculpate the Monarch. Burnet 
 says that James " had a particular account of his proceedings 
 writ to him every day, and he took pleasure to relate them in 
 the drawing-room to foreign ministers, and at his table, calling 
 it Jeffreys' s campaign ; speaking of all he had done in a style 
 that neither became the majesty nor the mercifulness of a 
 great Prince." Jeffreys himself (certainly a very suspicious 
 witness), when in the Tower, declared to Tutchin, that "his 
 instructions were much more severe than the execution of 
 them ; and that at his return he was snubbed at Court for 
 being too merciful." And to Dr. Scott, the divine who at- 
 tended him on his death-bed, he said, " Whatever I did then 
 I did by express orders ; and I have this further to say for 
 myself, that I was not half bloody enough for him who sent 
 me thither." We certainly know from a letter written to him 
 by the Earl of Sunderland at Dorchester, that " the King ap- 
 proved entirely of all his proceedings." And though we 
 cannot believe that he stopped short of any severity which he 
 thought would be of service to himself, there seems no reason 
 to doubt (if that be any palliation), that throughout the whole 
 of these proceedings his object was to please his master, whose 
 disposition was now most vindictive, and who thought that, by 
 such terrible examples, he should secure to himself a long and 
 quiet reign. k 
 
 h Vol. viii. 236. i Ante, p. 331. these horrors was Lord Sunderland, who 
 k One of the strongest testimonies against intreated repeatedly with Jeffreys, but in 
 James is his own letter to the Prince of vain, for a youth named William Jenkins. 
 Orange, dated Sept. 24, 1685, in which, after His father, an eminent Nonconformist clergy- 
 giving him a long account of his fox-hunting, man, having died in Newgate in consequence 
 he says, "As for news, there is little stirring, of a long and unjust imprisonment, he dis- 
 but that the Lord Chief Justice has almost tributed mourning rings with the inscription, 
 done his campaign. He has already con- " William Jenkins murdered in Newgate." 
 demned several hundreds, some of which are He was in consequence confined in Ilchester 
 already executed, some are to be, and the gaol till released by Monmouth's army, which 
 others sent to the plantations." — Dalrymjjle's he followed. — Letter from Sunderland to 
 App. part ii. 165.— The only public man who Jeffreys, Sept. 12, 1685. State Paper Office.— 
 tfcowed any bowels of compassion amidst Whig party writers are at great pains to 
 
A.D. 1685. REWARDED WITH THE GREAT SEAL. 387 
 
 The two were equally criminal, 1 " and both had their reward. 
 But in the first instance, and till the consequences of such 
 wickedness and folly began to appear, they met each other 
 with mutual joy and congratulations. Jeffreys returning from 
 the West, by royal command stopped at Windsor Castle. He 
 arrived there on the 28th of September; and after a most 
 gracious reception, the Great Seal was immediately delivered 
 to him with the title of Lord Chancellor. 
 
 We learn from Evelyn that it had been three weeks in the 
 King's personal custody. " About six o'clock came Sir Dudley 
 North and his brother Eoger North, and brought the Great 
 Seal from my Lord Keeper, who died the day before. The 
 King went immediately to Council ; everybody guessing who 
 was most likely to succeed this great officer : most believed it 
 would be no other than Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who had 
 so rigorously prosecuted the late rebels, and was now gone 
 the Western circuit to punish the rest that were secured in the 
 several counties, and was now near upon his return." n 
 
 The London Gazette of October I, 1685, contains the fol- 
 lowing notice : 
 
 " Windsor, Sept. 28. 
 
 " His Majesty taking into his royal consideration the many eminent 
 and faithful services which the Eight Honourable George Lord Jeffreys, 
 of Wem, Lord Chief Justice of England, has rendered the Crown, as 
 well in the reign of the late King, of ever blessed memory, as since his 
 Majesty's accession to the throne, was pleased this day to commit to 
 him the custody of the Great Seal of England, with the title of Lord 
 Chancellor." 
 
 exculpate Folexfen, the great Whig lawyer, several noblemen, a considerable body of 
 
 who conducted all these prosecutions as gentry, and the most numerous and powerful 
 
 counsel for the Crown ; but I think he comes tribe in the kingdom."— Works, ii. 109. 
 
 in for no small share of the infamy then n Mem. i. 569. 
 
 incurred, and he must be considered as prin- ° The Crown Office Minute Book, not 
 
 cipal aide de camp to Jeffreys in the Western imitating the amusing circumstantiality of 
 
 campaign. He ought to have told the jury the old entries on the Close Roll, after stating 
 
 that there was no case against the Lady Lisle, the death of the late Lord Keeper on the 5th 
 
 and when a few examples had been made he of September, the delivery of the Seal next 
 
 ought to have stopped the prosecutions, or day to the King, " who kept it in his own 
 
 have thrown up his briefs. See Life of custody till the return of the Lord Jeffreys 
 
 James II. vol. ii. p. 44. Mackintosh's Works, from the Western circuit,"— merely states, 
 
 vol. ii. p. 34. that, "on the 28th of the same September, 
 
 m I hope I have not been prejudiced in his Majesty was pleased to deliver the Seal 
 
 my estimate of James's character by the to him with the title of Lord Chancellor." — 
 
 consideration that when acting as Regent in p 121. Burnet relates, that as a farther 
 
 Scotland he issued an order (afterwards re- reward he was created a Peer (ii. 335); and 
 
 called) for the utter suppression of the name Hume and most subsequent historians repeat 
 
 of Campbell, " which," says Mackintosh, the statement, although it is quite certain 
 
 " would have amounted to a proscription of that he had been created a Peer before the 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI. 
 
 CHAPTEE CI. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS TILL THE 
 GREAT SEAL WAS TAKEN FROM HIM BY JAMES H. AND THROWN INTO 
 THE RIVER THAMES. 
 
 The new Lord Chancellor, having brought the Great Seal 
 Sept. 29, with him from Windsor to London, had near a month 
 
 1685. .j- p re p are f or the business of the term. 
 
 He took a large house in Duke Street, Westminster ; and 
 there fitted up a Court, which was afterwards consecrated as 
 a place of public worship, and is now called " Duke Street 
 Chapel." p 
 
 He had had only a very slender acquaintance with Chan- 
 cery proceedings, and he was by no means thoroughly 
 grounded in common-law learning ; but he now fell to the 
 study of equity pleading and practice, and though exceed- 
 ingly inferior to his two immediate predecessors in legal ac- 
 quirements, his natural shrewdness was such, that, when 
 entirely sober, he contrived to gloss over his ignorance of 
 technicalities, and to arrive at a right decision. He was 
 seldom led into temptation by the occurrence of cases in 
 which the interests of political parties, or religious sects, 
 were concerned ; and, as an Equity Judge, the multitude 
 rather regarded him with favour. 
 
 He took his place in the Court of Chancery on the 23rd of 
 October, the first day of Michaelmas term. I find no account 
 of his procession from Duke Street to Westminster Hall ; and 
 I rather suspect that, on account of the offence he had given 
 to so many persons by his brutal manners and his general 
 
 meeting of the parliament months before, and park adjacent, for the accommodation of his 
 
 had takon an active part in the House of Lordship. These steps terminate above in a 
 
 Lords before Monmouth's rebellion broke out. small court, on three sides of which stands 
 
 As such mistakes are little noticed, I am the house. The cause room was afterwards 
 
 encouraged to hope that those I may fall into converted into a place of worship called 
 
 may be overlooked or forgiven. Duke Street Chapel, and is on the left. When 
 
 P Pennant, in his "London," speaking of Jeffreys found it inconvenient tositatWest- 
 
 JefFreys's house, says, " It is easily known minster or Lincoln's Inn, he made use of tbii 
 
 by a large flight of stone steps, which his court." 
 roya! master permitted to be made into the 
 
A.D. 1685. HIS INSTALLATION. 389 
 
 unpopularity, it was not well attended. When lie took the 
 oaths in the Court of Chancery, there were present "the 
 Earl of Eochester, Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Clarendon, 
 Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Derby, 
 the Earl of Sunderland, the Earl of Craven, the Earl of Bur- 
 lington, Lord Fauconbridge, and several other persons of 
 honour, who only stayed while he heard one motion, and then 
 departed, leaving hirn sitting." q 
 
 The public and the profession were much shocked to see 
 such a man at the head of the law ; but as soon as he was in- 
 stalled in his office, there were plenty ready enough to gather 
 round him, and, suppressing their real feelings, to load him 
 with flattery and to solicit him for favours. 
 
 Evelyn, who, upon his appointment as Chief Justice, de- 
 scribes him as " most ignorant, but most daring," now as- 
 siduously cultivated his notice ; and, having succeeded in 
 getting an invitation to dine with him, thus speaks of him : 
 
 " 31st Oct., 1685. 
 
 " I dined at our great Lord Chancellor Jeffreys', who used me with 
 much respect. This was the late Chief Justice, who had newly been 
 the Western circuit to try the Monmouth conspirators, and had formerly 
 done such severe justice amongst the obnoxious in Westminster Hall, 
 for which his Majesty dignified him by creating him first a Baron, and 
 now Lord Chancellor ; is of an assured and undaunted spirit, and has 
 served the Court interest on all hardiest occasions ; is of nature civil, 
 and a slave of the Court." r 
 
 A slave of the Court he still continued, till the wicked and 
 insane measures which he unscrupulously supported proved 
 the ruin of himself and his master. He who originated and 
 commanded these measures incurred much less moral blame, 
 as he was a sincere believer in the religion he wished to esta- 
 blish in the country ; and it may be forgiven to a King to de- 
 sire to extend his prerogative. Had he been resisted by 
 a firm and virtuous minister, he might have continued to 
 reign prosperously, and have transmitted his Crown to his 
 posterity : — 
 
 ■ How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, 
 Makes deeds ill done ! Hadst not thou been by, 
 A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, 
 Quoted, and sign'd to do a deed of shame, 
 This murder had not come into my mind." 
 
 * Cr. Off. Min. 33. fol. 122. r Mem. i. 617. 
 
390 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI 
 
 The very first measure which James proposed to his new 
 Chancellor was, literally, the hanging of an alderman. He was 
 still afraid of the mutinous spirit of the City, which, without 
 some fresh terrors, might again break out, although the 
 charters were destroyed ; and no sufficient atonement had yet 
 been made for the hostility constantly manifested by the me- 
 tropolis to the policy of his family for half a century. His 
 Majesty proposed that Alderman Clayton, a very troublesome 
 agitator, should be selected as the victim. The Chancellor 
 agreed that " it was very fit an example should be made, as 
 his Majesty had graciously proposed ; but if it were the same 
 thing to his Majesty, he would venture to suggest a different 
 choice. Alderman Clayton was a bad subject, but Alderman 
 Cornish was still more troublesome, and more dangerous." 
 The King readily acquiesced, and Alderman Cornish was im- 
 mediately brought to trial before a packed jury, and executed 
 on a gibbet erected in Cheapside, on pretence that some years 
 before he had been concerned in the Eyehouse plot. 8 The 
 apologists of Jeffreys say (and as it is the only alleged instance 
 of his gratitude I have met with, I have great pleasure in re- 
 cording it) that he was induced to save Sir Eobert Clayton 
 from recollecting that this alderman had been his pot compa- 
 nion, and had greatly assisted him in obtaining the office of 
 Common Serjeant.' 
 
 Monmouth's rebellion in England, and Argyle's in Scotland, 
 being put down, and the City of London reduced to subjec- 
 tion, James expressed an opinion, in which the Chancellor 
 concurred, that there was no longer any occasion to disguise 
 the plan of governing by military force, and of violating at 
 pleasure the solemn acts of the legislature. Parliament re- 
 assembled on the 9th of November, when Jeffreys took his 
 seat on the Woolsack. The King alone (as had been con- 
 certed) addressed the two Houses, and plainly told them that 
 he could rely upon ' ' nothing but a good force of well disci- 
 plined troops in constant pay," and that he was determined 
 to employ " officers in the army, not qualified by the late tests, 
 for their employments." u 
 
 When the King had withdrawn, Lord Halifax rose, and 
 
 6 11 St. Tr. 381—465. This iniquitous Master of the Rolls, vainly remonstrated 
 
 attainder was reversed by act of parliament, against it, and told Jeffreys that " if he pur- 
 
 1 W. & M. sued that unfortunate man to execution, it 
 
 t Steward's Anecdotes : "Jeffries." How- would be no better than murder."— Yorke's 
 
 ever, the prosecution of Cornish excited such T)~ibes of fTales, 110. 
 
 general horror, that even Sir John Trevor, the u 4 Pari. Hist. 1369. 
 
A.D. 1685. LORDS' DEBATE ON KING'S SPEECH. 391 
 
 said, sarcastically, " They had now more reason than ever to 
 give thanks to his Majesty, since he had dealt so plainly with 
 them, and discovered what he would be at," 
 
 This the Chancellor thought fit to take as a serious motion, 
 and immediately put the question, as proposed by a noble 
 Lord, "that an humble address be presented to his Majesty 
 to thank him for his gracious speech from the throne." No 
 one ventured to offer any remark, and it was immediately 
 carried, neniine dissentiente. The King returned a grave answer 
 to the address, " That he was much satisfied to find their Lord 
 ships were so well pleased with what he said, and that he would 
 never offer any thing to their House that he should not be con- 
 vinced was for the true interest of the kingdom." x 
 
 But the Lords very soon discovered the false position in 
 which they had placed themselves, and the Bishops were par- 
 ticularly scandalised at the thought that they were supposed 
 to have thanked the King for announcing a principle upon 
 which Papists and Dissenters might be introduced into every 
 civil office, and even into ecclesiastical benefices. 
 
 Accordingly, Compton, Bishop of London, moved "that a 
 day might be appointed for taking his Majesty's speech into 
 consideration," stating, "that he spoke the united sentiments 
 of the Episcopal bench when he pronounced the Test 
 Act the chief security of the Established Church." This 
 raised a very long and most animated debate, at which King 
 James, to his great mortification, was present. Sunderland, 
 and the popishly inclined ministers, objected to the regularity 
 of the proceeding, urging that, having given thanks for the 
 speech, they must be taken to have already considered it, and 
 precluded themselves from finding fault with any part of it. 
 The Lords Halifax, Nottingham, and Mordaunt, on the other 
 side, treated with scorn the notion that the constitution was 
 to be sacrificed to a point of form, and entering into the merits 
 of the question, showed that if the power which the Sovereign 
 now, for the first time, had openly claimed were conceded 
 to him, the rights, privileges, and property of the nation lay 
 at his mercy. 
 
 At last the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack, and not only 
 bitterly attacked the regularity of the motion after an unani- 
 mous vote of thanks to the King for his speech, but gallantly 
 insisted on the legality and expediency of the power of the 
 Sovereign to dispense with laws for the safety and benefit 
 
 * 4 ParL Hist. 1367. 
 
392 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI. 
 
 of the state. No Lord Chancellor ever made such an un- 
 fortunate exhibition. He assumed the same arrogant and 
 overbearing tone with which he had been accustomed from 
 the bench to browbeat juries, counsel, witnesses, and pri- 
 soners, and he launched out into the most indecent personalities 
 against his opponents. He was soon taught to know his 
 place, and that frowns, noise, and menaces would not pass for 
 arguments there. While he spoke he was heard with marked 
 disgust by all parts of the House ; when he sat down, being 
 required to retract his words by those whom he had assailed, 
 and finding all the sympathies of the House against him, he 
 made to each of them an abject apology, "and he proved by 
 his behaviour that insolence, when checked, naturally sinks 
 into meanness and cowardice." y 
 
 The Ministerialists being afraid to divide the House, — 
 Monday following, the 23rd of November, was fixed for taking 
 the King's speech into consideration. 
 
 But a similar disposition having been shown by the other 
 House, — before that day parliament was prorogued, and no 
 other national council met till the Convention Parliament after 
 the landing of King William. 2 
 
 James, far from abandoning his plans, was more resolute 
 a.d. 1686— to carry them into effect. The Earl of Eochester, 
 1687. his own brother-in-law, and others who had hitherto 
 
 stood by him, having in vain remonstrated against his 
 madness, resigned their offices ; but Jeffreys still recklessly 
 pushed him forward in his headlong career. In open vio- 
 lation of the Test Act, four Catholic Lords were intro- 
 duced into the Cabinet, and one of them, Lord Bellasis, 
 was placed at the head of the Treasury in the room of the 
 Protestant Earl of Rochester. Among such colleagues the 
 Lord Chancellor was contented to sit in Council, and the 
 wonder is, that he did not follow the example of Sunderland 
 and other renegades who, at this time, to please the King, 
 professed to change their religion, and were reconciled to 
 the Church of Rome. Perhaps, with his peculiar sagacity, 
 Jeffreys thought it would be a greater sacrifice in the 
 King's eyes to appear to be daily wounding his conscience 
 by submitting to measures which he must be supposed in- 
 wardly to condemn. 
 
 As a grand coup d'etat, he undertook to obtain a solemn 
 decision of the Judges in favour of the dispensing power, 
 
 y Hume, viii. 241. » 4 ParL Hist. 1367—1387. 
 
A.D. 1686-87. EMBASSY TO ROME. 393 
 
 and for this purpose a fictitious action was brought against 
 Sir Edward Hales, the Lieutenant of the Tower, an avowed 
 Roman Catholic, in the name of his coachman, for holding 
 an office in the army without having taken the oath of supre- 
 macy, or received the sacrament according to the rites of the 
 Church of England, or signed the declaration against tran- 
 substantiation. Jeffreys had put the Great Seal to letters pa- 
 tent, authorising him to hold the office without these tests, 
 " non obstante " the act of parliament. This dispensation was 
 pleaded in bar of the action, and upon a demurrer to the plea, 
 after a sham argument by counsel, all the Judges except one 
 (Baron Street) held the plea to be sufficient, and pronounced 
 judgment for the defendant. 3 It was now proclaimed at Court 
 that the law was not any longer an obstacle to any scheme 
 that might be thought advisable. 
 
 The Earl of Castlemaine was sent to Eome, regularly com- 
 missioned as ambassador to his Holiness the Pope, a Papal 
 nuncio being reciprocally received at St. James's. But as- 
 suming that religion was not embraced in the negotiations be- 
 tween the two courts, however impolitic the proceeding might 
 be, I do not think that the King and the Chancellor are liable to 
 be blamed, as they have been, by recent historians for having 
 in this instance violated acts of parliament. If all those 
 are examined which had passed from the commencement of 
 the Eeformation down to the " Bill of Eights," it will probably 
 be found that none of them can be applied to a mere diplo- 
 matic intercourse with the Pope, however stringent their pro- 
 visions may be against receiving bulls or doing anything in de- 
 rogation of the King's supremacy. 5 
 
 a 11 St. Tr. 1165. that he only carried a letter of compliment 
 
 b The statutes 5 Eliz. c. 1, and 13 Eliz. from James II. to the Tope as a temporal 
 
 c. 5, are chiefly relied upon, but I think they prince, he would have been immediately dis- 
 
 were passed alio intuitu. Neither in the charged. 12 St Tr. 618. 
 
 Declaration of Rights nor Bill of Eights is the Whether diplomatic intercourse -with the 
 
 embassy to Rome enumerated among the Pope is now forbidden, depends upon the 
 
 infractions of law by which James had tried construction to be put upon the words, " shall 
 
 to subvert the liberties and religion of the hold communion with the see or church of 
 
 country. Lord Castlemaine was prosecuted Rome" in the Bill of Rights. This seems 
 
 by the Convention Parliament— but it was on to refer to spiritual communion only, or the 
 
 the charge of going on a mission " to reconcile Queen would hold communion with the suc- 
 
 the realm of England to the Roman see." cessor of Mahomet by appointing an ambas- 
 
 And if he could have made out his defence sador to the Sublime Porte.* 
 
 * This question has been since settled by stat. 11 & 12 Vic, c. 108, which expressly lega- 
 lized diplomatic intercourse with the Pope, but unfortunately contained a prohibition against 
 receiving any person as minister from him who is in holy orders, — which Pio Nono himnell 
 assured me has rendered it of no avail. — Aug. 1856. 
 
394 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CL 
 
 There can be no doubt of the illegality of the next measure 
 of the King and the Chancellor. The Court of High Commis- 
 sion was revived with some slight modification, although it 
 had been abolished in the reign of Charles I. by an act of par- 
 liament, which forbade the erection of any similar Court, — 
 and Jeffreys, having deliberately put the Great Seal to the 
 patent creating this new arbitrary tribunal, undertook to pre- 
 side in it. The Commissioners were vested with unlimited 
 jurisdiction over the Church of England, and were empowered, 
 even in cases of suspicion, to proceed inquisitorially like the 
 abolished Court, " notwithstanding any law or statute to the con- 
 trary." The object was to have all ecclesiastics under com- 
 plete control, lest any of them should oppose the intended 
 innovations in religion. d 
 
 Jeffreys selected as his first victims, Sharp, Eector of St. 
 Giles's, called " the railing parson," who had made himself 
 very obnoxious to the government by inveighing against the 
 eiTors of Popery, — and Compton, Bishop of London, his 
 diocesan, who had raised the storm against the dispensing 
 power in the House of Lords. A mandate was issued to the 
 Bishop to suspend the Eector, and this being declined on the 
 ground that no man can be lawfully condemned till he has 
 been heard in his defence, both were summoned before the 
 High Commission. 
 
 The Bishop appearing, and being asked by the Chancellor 
 why he had not obeyed the King's orders by suspending Dr. 
 Sharp, prayed time to prepare his defence, as his counsel 
 were on the circuit, and he begged to have a copy of the 
 commission. A week's time was given ; but as to the com- 
 mission, he was told "all the coffee-houses had it for a 
 penny." On the eighth day the business was resumed; but 
 the Bishop still said he was unprepared, having great dif- 
 ficulty to procure a copy of the commission: — when the 
 Chancellor made him a bantering apology. " My Lord, in 
 telling you our commission was to be seen in every coffee- 
 house, I did not speak with any design to reflect on your 
 Lordship, as if you were a haunter of coffee-houses. I abhor 
 the thoughts of it ! " A further indulgence of a fortnight was 
 granted. 
 
 c The erection of this Court is the third favour of Herbert, the Chief Justice, he, to 
 
 grievance enumerated by the Bill of Rights, please the King, suggested the bold measura 
 
 1 W. & M. sess. 2, c. 2. of reviving the Court of High Commission.— • 
 
 <i Burnet says that Jeffreys had been de- ii. 370. 
 dining at Court, and that, jealous of the rising 
 
A.D. 1686-87. TRIAL OF LORD DELAMERE. 395 
 
 At the day appointed, the Bishop again appeared with foul 
 Doctors of the civil law, — who were so frightened, that they 
 hardly dared to say a word for him ; but he himself firmly, 
 though mildly argued, " that he had acted jurisperitorum con- 
 silio, and could not have had any bad motive ; that he should 
 not have been justified in obeying an illegal order ; that he 
 had privately recommended to Dr. Sharp not to preach ; 
 that this advice had been followed, so that the King's wish 
 was complied with ; and that if he had committed any fault, 
 he ought to be tried for it before his Archbishop and brother 
 Bishops." 
 
 Several of the Commissioners were inclined to let him off 
 with an admonition; but Jeffreys obtained and pronounced 
 sentence of Suspension during the King's pleasure, both on the 
 Bishop and the Eector. 6 
 
 There was another political trial where justice was done to 
 the accused, although Jeffreys presided at it. A charge was 
 brought against Lord Delamere, the head of an ancient family 
 in Cheshire, that he had tried to excite an insurrection in that 
 county in aid of Monmouth's rebellion. An indictment for 
 high treason being found against him, he was brought to trial 
 upon it, before Jeffreys as Lord High Steward and thirty 
 Peers-triers. The King was present, and was very desirous 
 of a conviction, as Lord Delamere, when a member of the 
 House of Commons, had taken an active part in supporting 
 the Exclusion Bill. 
 
 Jeffreys did his best to gratify this wish. According to the 
 habit he had lately acquired in the West, he at first tried to 
 induce the noble prisoner to confess, — in the hope of pardon 
 "from the King's known clemency." "My Lord," said he, 
 " if you are conscious to yourself that you are guilty of this 
 heinous crime, give glory to God, make amends to his vicege- 
 rent the King, by a plain and full discovery of your guilt, and 
 do not, by an obstinate persisting in the denial of it, provoke 
 the just indignation of your Prince, who has made it appear to 
 the world that his inclinations are rather to show mercy than 
 inflict punishment." 
 
 Lord Delamere, to ease his mind from the anxiety to know 
 whether the man who so spoke was to pronounce upon his 
 guilt or innocence, said, " I beg your Grace would please to 
 satisfy me whether your Grace be one of my judges in con- 
 cuirence with the rest of the Lords ? " — L. H. Steward. " No, 
 
 e 11 St.Tr. 1123—1166. 
 
396 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI. 
 
 my Lord, I am Judge of the Court, but I am none of your 
 triers." f 
 
 A plea to the jurisdiction being put in, Lord Delamere re- 
 quested his Grace to advise with the other Peers upon it, as 
 it was a matter of privilege. — L. H. Steward. " Good my Lord, 
 I hope you that are a prisoner at the bar are not to give me 
 direction who I should advise with, or how I should demean 
 myself here." 
 
 This plea was properly overruled, and Not guilty pleaded, 
 — when his Grace, to prejudice the Peers-triers against the 
 noble prisoner as a notorious exclusionist, delivered an in- 
 flammatory address to them before any evidence was given, — 
 thus beginning : " My Lords, I know you cannot but well 
 remember what unjust and insolent attempts were made upon 
 the rightful and unalterable succession to the imperial crown 
 of these realms, under the pretence of that which has been so 
 often found to be the occasion of rebellion, I mean the specious 
 pretence of religion by the fierce, froward, and fanatical zeal 
 of some members of the House of Commons in the last parlia- 
 ments under the late King Charles II., of ever blessed memory ; 
 which by the wonderful providence of Almighty God not pre- 
 vailing, the chief contrivers of that horrid villany consulted 
 together how to gain that advantage upon the monarchy by 
 open force which they could not obtain by a pretended course 
 of law." 
 
 To create a farther prejudice, poor Lord Howard was called 
 to repeat once more his oft-told tale of the Eyehouse plot, 
 with which it was not pretended that the prisoner had any 
 connection. The charge in the indictment was only supported 
 by one witness, who himself had been in the rebellion, and 
 who swore that Lord Delamere, at a time and place which he 
 specified, had sent a message by him to Monmouth, asking 
 a supply of money to maintain 10,000 men to be levied in 
 Cheshire against King James. An alibi was clearly proved. 
 Yet his Grace summed up for a conviction, and took pains, 
 " for the sake of the numerous and great auditory, that a mis- 
 take in point of law might not go unrectified, which seemed to 
 be urged with some earnestness by the noble Lord at the bar, 
 that there is a necessity there should be two positive witnesses to convict 
 a man of treason." 
 
 t When a Peer is tried in parliament before of parliament, the Lord High Steward is only 
 
 the House of Lords, the Lord High Steward the Judge to give direction in point of law, 
 
 votes like the rest of the Peers, who have all and the verdict is by the Lords-triers spe- 
 
 a right to be present ; but if the trial be out cially summoned. 
 
A.D. 1686-87. CASE OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 397 
 
 To the honour of the peerage of England, there was an 
 unanimous verdict of acquittals James himself even allowed 
 this to be right, wreaking all his vengeance on the witness for 
 not having given better evidence, and swearing that he would 
 have him first convicted of perjury, and then hanged for 
 treason. Jeffreys seems to have struggled hard to behave 
 with moderation on this trial ; 'but his habitual arrogance 
 from time to time broke out, and must have created a disgust 
 among the Peers-triers very favourable to the prisoner. " My 
 Lords," said he, " I would always be very tender of the pri- 
 vilege of the Peers ; but truly I apprehend, according to the 
 best of my understanding, that this Court is held before me : 
 it is my warrant that convenes the prisoner to this bar : it is 
 my summons that brings the Peers together to try him ; and 
 so I take myself to be the Judge of the Court." h 
 
 Jeffreys, still pretending to be a strong Protestant, eagerly 
 assisted the King in his mad attempt to open the Church 
 and the universities to the intrusion of the Catholics. The 
 Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, having disobeyed the 
 royal mandate to elect, as head of their College, Anthony 
 Farmer, who was not qualified by the statutes, and was a 
 man of infamous character, — and having chosen the pious and 
 learned Hough, — were summoned before the Court of Ecclesi- 
 astical Commission. Jeffreys observed that Dr. Fairfax, one 
 of their number, had not signed the answer of the College 
 to the charge of disregarding the King's recommendation. 
 Fairfax asking leave to explain his reasons for declining 
 to sign the answer, Jeffreys thought that he was willing to 
 conform, and exclaimed, " Ay, this looks like a man of sense, 
 and a good subject. Let's hear what he will say." — Fairfax. 
 " I don't object to the answer, because it is the vindication of 
 my College : I go further ; and as, according to the rules of 
 the Ecclesiastical Courts, a libel is given to the party that he 
 may know T the grounds of his accusation, I demand that libel ; 
 for I do not know otherwise wherefore I am called here, and 
 besides this affair should be discussed in Westminster Hall." — 
 Jeffreys. " You are a Doctor of Divinity, not of Law." — Fairfax. 
 " By what authority do you sit here ? " — Jeffreys. " Pray, 
 what commission have you to be so impudent in Court ? This 
 man ought to be kept in a dark room. Why do you suffer 
 him without a guardian ? Why did you not bring him to me ? 
 Pray let my officers seize him." ' 
 
 8 11 St. Tr. 593. h Ibid. 592. i 11 St. Tr. 1143—1148. 12 St. Tr. 1. 26 n. 
 
393 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI. 
 
 Three members of the Ecclesiastical Commission were sent 
 Feb 1688 *° Oxford to represent that formidable body, and 
 they annulled the election of Hough, expelled the 
 refractory Fellows, and made Magdalen College, for a time, a 
 Popish establishment — the Court in London, under the presi- 
 dency of Jeffreys, confirming all their proceedings. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor next involved the King in the prose- 
 cution of the Seven Bishops, which, more than any other 
 act of misrule during his reign, led to his downfall. k On 
 the 25th of April, 1688, a new "Declaration of Indulgence" 
 came out under the Great Seal ; and, that it might be the 
 more generally known and obeyed, an order was sent from 
 the Council to all Bishops in England, enjoining that it should 
 be read by the clergy in all churches and chapels within their 
 dioceses during divine service. A petition, signed by Sancroft, 
 the Archbishop, and six other Prelates, was laid before the 
 King, praying in respectful language that the clergy might 
 be excused from reading the Declaration ; not because they 
 were wanting in duty to the Sovereign, or in tenderness to the 
 dissenters, but because it was founded upon the dispensing 
 power, which had often been declared illegal in parliament, 
 and on that account they could not, in prudence, honour, or 
 conscience, be such parties to it as the reading of it in the 
 church would imply. 
 
 Even the Earl of Sunderland and Father Peter represented 
 to the King the danger of arraying the whole Church of 
 England against the authority of the Crown, and advised him 
 that the Bishops should merely be admonished to be niore 
 compliant. But with the concurrence of Jeffreys he resolved to 
 visit them with condign punishment, and they were ordered 
 to appear before the Council, with a view to obtain evidence 
 against them, as the Petition had been privately presented 
 to the King. "When they entered the Council Chamber, 
 Jeffreys said to them, "Do you own the Petition?" After 
 some hesitation, the Archbishop confessed that he wrote it, 
 and the Bishops that they signed it. : — Jeffreys. " Did you pub- 
 lish it?" They, thinking he referred to the printing of it, 
 of which the King had loudly complained, denied this very 
 resolutely, — but they admitted that they had delivered it to 
 the King at Whitehall palace, in the county of Middlesex. 1 " 
 
 k In James's Memoirs, all the blame of supported his master. 
 this prosecution is thrown upon Jeffreys ; but m On their trial, they were, after all, about 
 it is more probable that he only recklessly to be acquitted for want of evidence, when 
 
A.D. 1688. SEVEN BISHOPS SENT TO THE TOWER. 399 
 
 This was considered enough to fix them with a publication, in 
 point of law, of the supposed libel ; and Jeffreys, after lecturing 
 them on their disloyalty, required them to enter into a recog- 
 nizance to appear before the Court of King's Bench, and 
 answer the high misdemeanour of which they were guilty. 
 They insisted, that, according to the Privileges of the House of 
 Peers, of which they were members, they could not lawfully 
 be committed, and were not bound to enter into the required 
 recognizance. Jeffreys threatened to commit them to the 
 Tower as public delinquents. — Archbishop. " We are ready to 
 go whithersoever his Majesty may be pleased to send us. We 
 hope the King of kings will be our protector and our judge. 
 "We fear nought from man ; and having acted according to law 
 and our consciences, no punishment shall ever be able to 
 shake our resolutions." 
 
 If this struggle could have been foreseen, even Jeffreys 
 would have shrunk from the monstrous impolicy of sending 
 these holy men to gaol, on what would be considered the 
 charge of temperately exercising a constitutional right in 
 defence of the Protestant faith, so dear to the great bulk of 
 the nation ; — but he thought it was too late to resile. He, 
 therefore, with his own hand, drew a warrant for their com- 
 mitment, which he signed, and handed round the Board. It 
 was signed by all the Councillors present, except Father 
 Peter, whose signature the King excused — to avoid the awk- 
 ward appearance of Protestant Bishops being sent to gaol by a 
 Jesuit. 
 
 It is not for me to relate the progress of these pious confes- 
 sors to the Tower of London, or the interesting vicissitudes of 
 their trial ; n but there are some circumstances connected with 
 their acquittal in which Jeffreys personally appears. 
 
 Seeing how he had acquired such immense favour, there 
 were other lawyers who tried to undermine him by his own 
 arts. One of the most formidable of these was Sir John 
 Trevor, Master of the Polls, who, some authors say, certainly 
 would have got the Great Seal had James remained longer on 
 the throne, but whom Jeffreys had hitherto kept down by 
 reversing his decrees. The Chancellor's alarm was now ex- 
 cited by a report that Sir William Williams (who, from being 
 Speaker of the last Westminster parliament, and fined 10,000/. 
 on the prosecution of the Duke of York, was become the 
 
 Lord Sunderland was sent for, and proved a they were going into the King's closet to 
 stottxaent which they had made to him that present the Petition. n 12 St. Tr. 183—433 
 
400 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chai>. CL 
 
 caressed Solicitor-General to James II.) had a positive promise 
 of the Great Seal if he could obtain a conviction of the Seven 
 Bishops. His brutal conduct to them during the whole trial, 
 which was no doubt reported to Jeffreys, would confirm the 
 rumour and increase his apprehensions. The jury having sat 
 up all night in the Court of King's Bench without food, fire, 
 or candle, to consider of their verdict, the Lord Chancellor, 
 while they were still enclosed, had come down to West- 
 minster Hall next morning, and taken his seat in his own 
 Court. When he heard the immense shout arise which soon 
 made the King tremble on Hounslow Heath, he smiled and 
 hid his face in his nosegay — " as much," observes the relater 
 of the anecdote, " as to say, Mr. Solicitor, I keep my Seal" p 
 
 However, the part he had taken in sending the Bishops to 
 the Tower had caused such scandal, that the University of 
 Oxford would not have him for their Chancellor, although in 
 the prospect of a vacancy he had received many promises of 
 support. The moment the news arrived of the death of the 
 old Duke of Ormond, his grandson was elected to succeed 
 him ; and next day a mandate coming from Court to elect 
 Lord Jeffreys, an answer was returned, that an election had 
 already taken place which could not be revoked. 
 
 Suspecting that things were now taking an unfavourable 
 turn, he began privately to censure the measures of the Court, 
 and to insinuate that the King had acted against his advice, 
 saying, "It will be found that I have done the part of an 
 honest man ; but as for the Judges, they are most of them 
 rogues." 
 
 About this time he was present at an event which was 
 considered more than a counterpoise to recent discomfitures, 
 but which greatly precipitated the crisis by taking away the 
 hope of relief by the rightful succession of a Protestant heir. 
 — Being suddenly summoned to Whitehall, he immediately 
 repaired thither, and found that the Queen had been taken 
 in labour. Other Councillors and many ladies of quality 
 soon arrived, and they were all admitted into her bed-cham- 
 ber. Her Majesty seems to have been much annoyed by the 
 presence of the Lord Chancellor. The King calling for him, 
 
 ° The arrangement of counsel in this cele- sively for the Crown, and by Polexfen, Treby, 
 
 brated case was very whimsical. The Bishops and Somers, considered steady Whigs, 
 
 were defended by Pemberton, the Ex-Chief P On the authority of Lord Hardwicke 
 
 Justice, who had presided at several of the See Yorke's Tribes of Wales, 110 n. 12 St 
 
 late state trials, by Levinz, Sawyer, and Tr. 18S. 
 Finch, who had conducted them very oppres- 
 
A.D. 1688. APPROACH OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE. 401 
 
 he came forward, and stood on the step of the bed to show 
 that he was there, bhe then begged her consort to cover her 
 face with his head and periwig; for she declared " she could 
 not be brought to bed, and have so many men look on her.' 
 However, the fright may have shortened her sufferings ; for 
 James III., or " the Old Pretender," very speedily made his 
 appearance, and the midwife having made the concerted 
 signal that the child was of the wished-for sex, the company 
 retreated. q 
 
 Considering the surmises which had been propagated ever 
 since the Queen's pregnancy was announced, that it was 
 feigned, and that a supposititious child was to be palmed upon 
 the world, Jeffreys was lamentably deficient in duty to the 
 King in not having recommended steps to convince the public 
 from the beginning, beyond all possibility of controversy, of 
 the genuineness of the birth. A\ hen the story of the ' ' warm- 
 ing pan w had taken hold of the public mind, many witnesses 
 were examined before the Privy Council to disprove it ; r but 
 it continued an article of faith with thorough Anti-jacobites 
 during the two succeeding reigns. 
 
 The birth of a son, which the King had so ardently longed 
 for, led to his speedy overthrow. Instead of the intrigues 
 between the discontented at home and the Prince and Princess 
 of Orange, hitherto regarded as his successors, being put an 
 end to, they immediately assumed a far more formidable 
 aspect. William, who had hoped in the course of a few 
 years to wield the energies of Britain against the dangerous 
 ambition of Louis XIV., saw that if he remained quiet he 
 should with difficulty even retain the circumscribed power of 
 Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He therefore gladly 
 listened to the representations of those who had fled to Hol- 
 land to escape from the tyranny exercised in their native 
 countiy, or who sent secret emissaries. to implore his aid ; and 
 he boldly resolved to come to England — not as a military 
 conqueror, but for their deliverance, and to obtain the Crown 
 with the assent of the nation. That he and his adherents 
 might be protected against any sudden effort to crush them, 
 a formidable fleet was equipped in the Dutch ports, and a 
 considerable army, which had been assembled professedly for 
 
 * The attendance of Jeffreys at Whitehall " Then comes great George, of England 
 on this occasion was celebrated in doggerel Chan*ellour, 
 
 verse . Who was with expedition call'd to th' 
 
 labour." 
 f 12 St. Tr. 123. 
 VOL. IV. 2d 
 
402 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CI 
 
 a different purpose, was ready on a short notice to be em- 
 barked in it. 
 
 James, who had been amusing himself by making the Pope 
 godfather to his son, and had listened with absolute incredu- 
 lity to the rumours of the coming invasion, suddenly became 
 sensible of his danger, and, to avert it, was willing to make 
 any sacrifice to please his people. The slender merit of the 
 tardy, forced, and ineffectual concessions which were offered is 
 claimed respectively by the apologists of the King, of Jeffreys, 
 and of the Earl of Sunderland, but seems due to the last of the 
 three. James's infatuation was so transcendent, — he was so 
 struck with judicial blindness, — being doomed to destruction, 
 he was so demented, that, if let alone, he probably would 
 have trusted with confidence to his divine right and the protec- 
 tion of the Virgin, even when William had landed at Torbay. 
 As far as I can discover,— froin the time when Jeffreys received 
 the Great Seal, he never originated any measures wise or 
 wicked, and, without remonstrance, he heartily co-operated in 
 all those suggested by the King, however illegal or mischiev- 
 ous they might be. I do not find the slightest foundation for 
 the assertion that, with all his faults, he had a regard for the 
 Protestant religion, which made him stand up in its defence. 
 The " Declaration of Indulgence," to which he put the Great 
 Seal, might be imputed to a love of toleration (to which he 
 was a stranger), but what can be said of the active part he took 
 in the High Commission Court, and in introducing Eoman Ca- 
 tholics into the Universities and into the Church ? The Earl of 
 Sunderland, though utterly unprincipled, was a man of great 
 discernment and courage ; he could speak boldly to the King ; 
 and he had joined in objecting to the precipitate measures for 
 giving ascendency to his new religion, which had produced 
 this crisis. His seemingly forced removal from office he him- 
 self probably suggested, along with the other steps now taken 
 to appease the people. 
 
 Whoever might first propose the altered policy, Jeffreys was 
 the instrument for carrying it into effect, and thereby it lost all 
 its grace and virtue. He took off the suspension of the Bishop 
 of London, and, by a supersedeas under the Great Seal, abolished 
 the High Commission Court. He annulled all the proceedings 
 respecting Magdalen College, and issued the necessary process 
 for re-instating Dr. Hough and the Protestant Fellows. He put 
 the Great Seal to a general pardon. 
 
 But the re-action was hoped for, above all, from the n> 
 
A.D. 1688. CONCESSIONS TO PLEASE THE PEOPLE. 403 
 
 etoration of the City charters. 9 On the 2nd of October the 
 Chancellor sent a flattering message to the Mayor and Alder- 
 men to come to Whitehall in the evening, that they might be 
 presented at Court by " their old Eecorder." Here the King 
 told them that he was mightily concerned for the welfare of 
 their body, and that at a time when invasion threatened the 
 kino'dom, he was determined to show them his confidence in 
 their loyalty, by restoring the rights of the City to the state in 
 which they were before the unfortunate quo warranto proceed- 
 ings had been instituted in the late reign. Accordingly, on the 
 following day, a meeting of the Common Council was called at 
 Guildhall, and the Lord Chancellor proceeded thither in his 
 state carriage, attended by his purse-bearer, mace-bearer, anC 
 other officers, and, after a florid speech, delivered them letters 
 patent under the Great Seal, which waived all forfeitures, re- 
 vived all charters, and confirmed all liberties the City had ever 
 enjoyed under the King or any of his ancestors. Great joy 
 was manifested ; but the citizens could not refrain from show- 
 ing their abhorrence of the man who brought these glad 
 tidings, — and on his return they hissed him, and hooted him, 
 and gave him a foretaste of the violence he was soon to expe- 
 rience from an English mob. 
 
 It is said that, upon a rumour that the Prince of Orange had 
 suffered some disaster, the King repented of these concessions, 
 and ordered them to be recalled : but, in truth, the assent of 
 the Crown was expressed by the Chancellor to the restoration of 
 Trebv to the office of Eecorder, and to the election of Sir John 
 Shorter, a churchman, as Mayor, in the room of Eyles, an 
 anabaptist, who had been appointed by the Crown, that he 
 might be succeeded by a Eoman Catholic. The forfeited 
 and surrendered charters were likewise restored to the other 
 corporations in England. These popular acts, however, were 
 generally ascribed to fear, and the coalition 'of all parties, 
 including the preachers of passive obedience, to obtain a per- 
 manent redress of grievances by force, continued resolute and 
 unshaken. 
 
 When William landed, the frightful severities of Jeffreys 
 in the West had the effect of preventing the populace from, 
 flocking to his standard, but he met with no opposition, and 
 soon persons of great consideration and influence sent in their 
 adhesion to him. 
 
 When we read in history of civil commotions and foreign 
 
 * See Diary of second Lord Clarendon, 3rd Oct. 1688. 
 
 2 d 2 
 
404 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CL 
 
 invasions, we are apt to suppose that all the ordinary business 
 of life was suspended. But on inquiry, we find that it went 
 on pretty much as usual, unless where interrupted by actual 
 violence. While the Prince of Orange was advancing to the 
 capital, and James was marching out to give him battle, if 
 his army would have stood true. — the Court of Chancery sat 
 regularly to hear " exceptions " and " motions for time to 
 plead ;" and on the very day on which the Princess Anne fled 
 to Nottingham, and her. unhappy father exclaimed, in the ex- 
 tremity of his agony, " God help me ! my own children have 
 forsaken me," the Lord Chancellor decided, that "if an ad- 
 ministrator pays a debt due by bond before a debt due by 
 a decree in Equity, he is still liable to pay the debt due by the 
 decree." l 
 
 Change of dynasty was not yet talked of, and the cry was 
 for "a free parliament." To meet this, the King resolved to 
 call one in his own name ; and the last use which Jeffreys 
 made of the Great Seal was by sealing writs for the election of 
 members of the House of Commons, who were ordered to meet 
 on the 15th of January following." 
 
 This movement only infused fresh vigour into the Prince 
 of Orange, who now resolved to bring matters to a crisis ; 
 and James finding himself almost universally deserted, — as 
 the most effectual way, in his judgment, of annoying his 
 enemies, — very conveniently for them, determined to leave the 
 kingdom. Preparatory to this he had a parting interview 
 with Jeffreys, to whom he did not confide his secret, -but he 
 obtained from him all the parliamentary writs which had not 
 been issued to the sheriffs, amounting to a considerable num- 
 ber, and these, with his own hand, he threw into the fire, — so 
 that a lawful parliament might not be assembled when he was 
 gone. To increase the confusion, he required Jeffreys to 
 surrender the "Great Seal to him, — having laid the plan of 
 destroying it, — in the belief, that without it the government 
 could not be conducted. 
 
 All things being prepared, and Father Peter and the Earl of 
 
 24th Nov. 1688. 2 Vernon, 88, Searle last day of Ternl. So late as the 8th of De- 
 
 v. Lane. By a reference to the minute books cember he sat and heard several petitions. 
 
 in the Registrar's Office, it appears that In the evening of this day the Groat Seal 
 
 Jeffreys sat again on Monday Nov. 26tb, was taken from him. The Court of Chancery 
 
 when he decided Duval v. Edwards, a case on was held by the Master of the Rolls and 
 
 exceptions, nine in number, giving a separate certain Masters up to Christmas. 
 
 Vdgment on each. He did not sit on the u See Diary of second Earl of Clarendon, 
 
 27 th, but he did on the 28th, which was the Nov. 28, 29, 1688. 
 
A.D. 1688. HIS CONSTERNATION ON JAMES'S FLIGHT. 405 
 
 Melfort having been informed of his intentions, which he still 
 concealed from Jeffreys, — on the night of the 1 0th of December. 
 James, disguised, left Whitehall accompanied by Sir Edward 
 Hales, whom he afterwards created Earl of Tenterden. Lon- 
 don Bridge (which they durst not cross) being the only one 
 then over the Thames, they drove in a hackney-coach to the 
 Horse Ferry, Westminster, and as they crossed the river with 
 a pair of oars, the King threw the Great Seal into the water, 
 and thought he had sunk with it for ever the fortunes of the 
 Prince of Orange. At Vauxhall they found horses in readiness 
 for them, and they rode swiftly to Feversham, where they em- 
 barked for France. 
 
 CHAPTER OIL 
 
 INCLUSION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. 
 
 Instead of narrating the adventures of the monarch, when he 
 was intercepted at Feversham, we must confine our- Dec. n, 
 selves to what befel the unhappy Ex-Chancellor. He 1688 - 
 heard early next morning of the royal flight, and was thrown 
 into a state of the greatest consternation. He was afraid of 
 punishment from the new government which was now to be 
 established, and being asked by a courtier if he had heard 
 "what the heads of the Prince's declaration were?" he an- 
 swered, " I am sure that my head is one, whatever the rest 
 may be." He dreaded still more the fury of the mob, of which 
 the most alarming accounts were soon brought him. In the 
 existing state of anarchy, almost the whole population of the 
 metropolis crowded into the streets in quest of intelligence ; " 
 the excitement was unexampled ; there was an eager desire to 
 prevent the King's evil councillors from escaping along with 
 him ; and many bad characters, under a pretence of a regard 
 for the Protestant religion, took the opportunity to gratify 
 their love of violence and plunder. 
 
 * See Hubert's description to King John of the smith swallowing the tailor's news,— 
 
 " With his sheers and measure in bis hand, 
 Standing on dippers, which his nimble haste 
 Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet." 
 
406 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CII. 
 
 The first object of vengeance was Father Peter ; but it was 
 found that in consequence of the information of the King's in- 
 tentions conveyed to him and the Earl of Melfort, they had 
 secretly withdrawn the day before, and were now in safety. 
 The Pope's Nuncio was rescued from imminent peril by the 
 interposition of the Lords of the Council, who had met, and, 
 exercising temporarily the powers of government, were striving 
 to preserve the public tranquillity. 
 
 The next victim demanded was Jeffreys, who (no one know- 
 ing that the Great Seal had been taken from him) still went 
 by the name of "the Chancellor," and who of all professing 
 Protestants was the most obnoxious to the multitude. He 
 retired early in the day from his house in Duke Street to the 
 obscure dwelling of a dependant in Westminster, near the river 
 side, — and here, lying concealed, he caused preparations to be 
 made for his escape from the kingdom. It was arranged that 
 a coal-ship which had delivered her cargo should clear out at 
 the Custom House as for her return to Newcastle, and should 
 land him at Hamburgh. 
 
 To avoid, as he thought, all chance of being recognised by 
 those who had seen him in ermine or gold-embroidered robes, 
 with a long white band under the chin, his collar of SS round 
 his neck, and on his head a full-bottom wig, which had le- 
 cently become the attribute of judicial dignity, instead of the 
 old-fashioned coif or black-velvet cap, — he cut off his bushy 
 eyebrows, wont to inspire such terror, — he put on the worn- 
 out dress of a common sailor, — and he covered his head 
 with an old tarred hat that seemed to have weathered many a 
 blast/ 
 
 Thus disguised, as soon as it was dusk he got into a boat ; 
 and the state of the tide enabling him to shoot London Bridge 
 without danger, he safely reached the coal-ship, lying off 
 Vfapping. Here he was introduced to the captain and the 
 mate, on whose secrecy he was told he might rely ; but, as they 
 could not sail till next day, — Avhen he had examined his berth, 
 he went on board another vessel that lay at a little distance, 
 there to pass the night. If he had not taken this precaution, 
 he would have been almost immediately in the power of his 
 enemies. The mate, without waiting to see what became of 
 
 y Other accounts, varying a little from this, " Jeffreys was prepared for sailing 
 
 were given of his disguise, as we learn from In bis Itmg tarpaulin goim : 
 
 contemporary ballads :- Where is now his furious railing, 
 
 r •* Ann hie hlnAri_pA 
 
 " He took a collier's coat to sea to go — 
 Was ever Chancellour arrayed, so i " 
 
 And his blood-congealing frown ? 
 
 >> 
 
A.D. 1688. IN AX ALE-HOUSE AT WAPPIXG. 407 
 
 him, hurried oil shore, and treacherously gave information to 
 some persons who had been in pursuit of him, that he was con- 
 cealed in the Newcastle collier. They applied to Justices of the 
 peace in the neighbourhood for a warrant to arrest him, — 
 which was refused, on the ground that no specific charge was 
 sworn against him. They then went to the Lords of the 
 Council, whom they found sitting, and who actually gave them 
 a warrant to apprehend him for high treason, — under the belief 
 that the safety of the state required his detention. Armed 
 with this, they returned to the coal-ship in which he had taken 
 his passage, but he was not there, and the captain, a man of 
 honour, baffled all their inquiries. 
 
 He slept securely in the vessel in which he had sought 
 refuge ; and had it not been for the most extraordinary im- 
 prudence, leading to the belief that he was fated speedily to 
 expiate his crimes, he might have effected his escape. Pro- 
 bably, with a view of indulging more freely his habit of in- 
 temperance, he next morning came ashore, and made his 
 appearance at a little ale-house bearing the sign of " The Eed 
 Cow," in Anchor and Hope Alley, near King Edward's Stairs, 
 Wappmg, — and called for a pot of ale. When he had nearly 
 finished it, — still wearing his sailor's attire, with his hat 
 on his head, he was so rashly confident as to put his head 
 out from an open window to look at the passengers in the 
 street. 2 
 
 I must prepare my readers for the scene which follows by 
 relating, in the words of Eoger North, an anecdote of the be- 
 haviour of Jeffreys to a suitor in the heyday of his power and 
 arrogance. " There was a scrivener of Wappiiig brought to 
 hearing for relief against a bummery bond* The contingency 
 of losing all being showed, the bill was going to be dismissed ; b 
 but one of the plaintiff 's counsel said that the scrivener was a 
 strange fellow, and sometimes went to church, sometimes to 
 conventicles, and none could tell what to make of him ; and 
 it was thought he was a trimmer. At that the Chancellor fired ; 
 and ' A trimmer! ' said he ; ' I have heard much of that monster, 
 but never saw one. Come forth, Mr. Trimmer — turn you round, and 
 let us see your shape,'' and at that rate talked so long that the 
 
 * To heighten the effect, some relate that word from " bottom," which Dr. Jotmscn 
 
 the captain of the collier was in the mean chooses to derive from the Dutch word 
 
 time waiting for him, and that he lost the " bomme." 
 
 tide and his life by his love of drinking. b ie. The principal being put in hazard, 
 
 a " Bottomry bond." This contraction the interest was not usurious. 
 chows the etymology of an elegant English 
 
408 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CIL 
 
 poor fellow was ready to drop under him ; but at last the bill 
 was dismissed with costs, and he went his way. In the hall 
 one of his friends asked him how he came off? ' Came of,' 
 said he : ' I am escaped from the terrors of that man's face, 
 which I would scarce undergo again to save my life, and I 
 shall certainly have the frightful impression of it as long as I 
 live.'" c 
 
 It happened, by a most extraordinary coincidence, that this 
 very scrivener was then walking through Anchor and Hope Alley 
 on the opposite side of the way, and immediately looking 
 towards " The Red Cow," thought he recollected the features 
 of the sailor who was gazing across towards him. The con- 
 viction then flashed upon his mind that this could be no other 
 than the Lord Chancellor who had so frightened him out of 
 his wits before pronouncing a decree in his favour about the 
 '* bummery bond" But hardly believing his own senses, he 
 entered the tap- room of the ale-house to examine the counte- 
 nance more deliberately. Upon his entrance, Jeffreys must 
 have recognised "the Trimmer;' 1 for he coughed, turned 
 to the wall, and put the quart-pot before his face. An immense 
 multitude of persons were, in a few minutes, collected round 
 the door by the proclamation of the scrivener, that the pre- 
 tended sailor was indeed the wicked Lord Chancellor Jeffreys. 
 He was now in the greatest jeopardy, for unlike the usual 
 character of the English mob, who are by no means given to 
 cruelty, the persons here assembled were disposed at first to 
 tear him limb from limb, and he was only saved by the inter- 
 position of some of the more considerate, who suggested that 
 the proper course would be to take him before the Lord 
 Mayor. 
 
 The cry was raised, "To the Lord Mayor's!" but before 
 he could be secured in a carriage to be conveyed thither, they 
 assaulted and pelted him ; d and might have proceeded to greater 
 extremities, if a party of the train-bands had not rescued him 
 from their fury. They still, pursued him all the way with 
 whips, and halters, and cries of "Vengeance! Justice! Jus- 
 tice ! " e Although he lay back in the coach, he could still be 
 
 c Life of Guilford, ii. 118. epigrammatic point at the end : — 
 
 d Some accounts say that he died of the " Limb him they would, as boys at Shrove- 
 
 wounds he now received, but I do not think tlde do : 
 
 that any serious injury was inflicted upon Some cried l am for a win & an arm 5 'or 
 n j m what are you ? 
 
 p ™»u * ii «a. r. xi j i j I am for his bead, says one ; for his brains, 
 e The feelings of the mob are thus described says t'other- 
 
 in some doggerel verses, which 1 copy for the And I am for his nose ; his ears, another. 
 
A.D. 1688. COMMITTED TO THE TOWER. 409 
 
 discovered in his blue jacket, and with his sailor's hat flapped 
 down upon his face. f The Lord Mayor, Sir John Chapman, a 
 nervous, timid man, who had stood in tremendous awe of the 
 Lord Chancellor, could not now see him, disguised as a sailor, 
 without trepidation, — and instead of ordering him to stand at 
 the bar of his justice-room, — with much bowing and scraping, 
 and many apologies for the liberty he was using, requested 
 that his Lordship would do him the honour to dine with him, 
 as, it being now past twelve o'clock, he and the Lady Mayoress 
 were about to sit down to dinner. Jeffreys, though probably 
 with little appetite, was going to accept the invitation, — when 
 a gentleman in the room exclaimed, " The Lord Chancellor is 
 the Lord Mayor's prisoner, not his guest ; and now to harbour 
 him is treason, for which any one, however high, may have to 
 answer with his own blood." The Lord Mayor swooned away, 
 and died (it is said of apoplexy) soon after. 
 
 The numbers and violence of the mob had greatly increased 
 from the delay in examining the culprit, and they loudly 
 threatened to take the law into their own hand. g Some were 
 for examining him before an Alderman, and leading him out 
 by a back way for that purpose ; but he himself showed most 
 prudence by advising that, without any previous examination, 
 he should be committed to the Tower for safe custody, and 
 that two other regiments of the train-bands should be ordered 
 up to conduct him thither. In the confusion, he offered to 
 draw the warrant for his own commitment. This course was 
 followed, but was by no means free from danger, the mob 
 defying the matchlocks and pikes of the soldiers, and pressing 
 round the coach in which the noble prisoner was carried, still 
 flourishing the whips and halters, and expressing their deter- 
 mined resolution to execute summary justice upon him for the 
 many murders he had committed. Seeing the imminent danger 
 to which he was exposed, and possibly conscience-struck when 
 
 Oh, cries a third, I am for his buttocks f Burnet says, "After many \hcurs tossing 
 
 brave ; him about, he was carried to the Lord Mayor.' 
 
 Nine pounds of steaks from them I mean But this seems to be a great exaggeration, for 
 
 T . ° S?„ " ,„ fl „„u„ ,.„„„ „ f^ji, they must have arrived at the Lord Mayor's 
 
 I know the rogue is fleshy, says a fourth, J . J 
 
 His heart to me will be of greatest worth. about mid-day ; and, considering the season 
 Yes, quoth another, but not good to eat,— of the year, the discovery at Wapping could 
 A heart of steel will ne'er prove tender meat." not have been much before nine in the morn- 
 
 A better specimen of the street ballads on this in 2* ®' • u * 542- 
 
 occasion contains the following lines :— g " At fessi tardem cives, infanda furentem 
 
 *' Now you may hear the people as they scoure -A rmati cirvmmsistunt ipsumque domum- 
 
 Along, not fear to damn the Chancelloure. qu^ 
 
 Then women, too, and all the tender crew Atque ad supplicium praesenti morte 
 
 That used to pity, all now laugh at you." reposcunt." 
 
410 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CII. 
 
 lie thought he was so near his end, he lost all sense of dignity, 
 and all presence of mind. He held up his imploring hands, 
 sometimes on one side of the coach, and sometimes on the 
 other, exclaiming, " For the Lord's sake, keep them off! For 
 the Lord's sake, keep them off! " Oldmixon, who was an eye- 
 witness of this procession, and makes loud professions of com- 
 passion for malefactors, declares that he saw these agonising 
 alarms without pity. h 
 
 The difficulty was greatest in passing the open space on 
 Tower Hill. But at length the carriage passed the draw- 
 bridge, and the portcullis descended. Within all was still. 
 Jeffreys was courteously received by Lord Lucas, recently 
 appointed Lieutenant, and in a gloomy apartment, which he 
 never more left, he reflected in solitude on the procession which 
 had just terminated, — so different from those to which he had 
 been accustomed for some years on the first day of each re- 
 turning Term, when, attended by the Judges and all the 
 grandees of the law, he had moved in state to Westminster 
 Hall, the envy and admiration of all beholders. 
 
 A regular warrant for his commitment was the same night 
 made out by the Lords of the Council, 1 and the next day a 
 deputation from their body, consisting of Lords North, Grey, 
 Chandos, and Ossulston, attended to examine him at the 
 Tower. Four questions were asked him. 1. " What he 
 had done with the Great Seal of England ? " He answered 
 " that he had delivered it to the King on the Saturday 
 before at Mr. Cheffnel's, no person being present, and that he 
 had not seen it since." He was next asked, 2. " Whether he 
 had sealed all the writs for the parliament, and what he had 
 done with them p" " To the best of his remembrance," he 
 said, " the writs were all sealed and delivered to the King" 
 (suppressing that he had seen the King throw a great many of 
 them in the fire). 3. " Had he sealed the several patents for the 
 then ensuing year ? " He declared " that he had sealed several 
 
 h " I saw him, and heard him, and, I truly of a jury ; every grasp that he felt he had rea- 
 
 gay, without pity; though I never saw any son to think was that of the demon that 
 
 malefactor in his distress without compassion waited for him; every voice that he could 
 
 or concern." — i. 762. I am afraid that Old- distinguish in so wild an uproar overwhelmed 
 
 mixon would not have scrupled on this occa- him with reproaches ; and his conscience 
 
 sion to act the part of Judge Lynch. echoed within him that he deserved them 
 
 " So dreadfully did his own insolence and all." — Ralph, i. 1063. 
 
 barbarity recoil upon his own head; and so i This recited that he had been removed to 
 
 much was he to suffer as a criminal, who, as the Tower at his own desire, to secure him 
 
 a Judge, had brought such sufferings on from the violence of the people. 
 others. Every face that he saw was the face 
 
A.IM6S8. SEVERELY BLAMED Br KING JAMES. 411 
 
 patents for the new Sheriffs, but that he could not charge 
 his memory with the particulars." Lastly, he was asked 
 " whether he had a licence to go out of the kingdom ? ' : And 
 to this he replied, " that he had several licences to go beyond 
 sea, which were all delivered to Sir John Friend." He sub- 
 scribed these answers with an affirmation, that " they were 
 true upon his honour," — and the Lords withdrew. 
 
 But no sympathy did he meet with from any quarter, and 
 he was now reproachfully spoken of even by the King, to 
 please whom, he had " his eternal jewel given to the common 
 enemy of man." k The news of the outbreak against him 
 coming speedily toFeversham, the fugitive monarch, who then 
 meditated an attempt to remount his throne, thought that his 
 Chancellor might possibly be accepted by the nation as a 
 scape-goat, and laid upon him all the sins of his reign. It 
 happened, strangely enough, that the Inn to which .lames had 
 been carried when captured off Sheerness. was kept by a 
 man on whom Jeffreys, for some supposed contempt of Court, 
 had imposed a very heavy fine, which had not yet been levied. 
 Complaining of this arbitrary act to his royal guest. — who 
 had admitted him to his presence, and had asked him, in royal 
 fashion, " his name, his age, and his history," — James de- 
 sired him to draw a discharge as ample as he chose, — and, 
 establishing a precedent, which has been often followed since, 
 for writing in a seemingly private and confidential document 
 what is intended afterwards to be communicated to the public, 
 he subjoined to his signature these remarkable words, which 
 were immediately proclaimed in Feversharn and transmitted 
 to London, " I am sensible that my Lord Chancellor hath 
 been a very ill man, and hath done very ill things." 
 
 Jeffreys was assailed by the press in a manner which 
 showed how his cruelties had brutalised the public mind. 
 A poetical letter, addressed to him, advising him to cut his 
 own throat, thus concluded : — "I am your Lordship's 
 obkdient servant in any thing of this nature. From the little 
 house over against Tyburn, where the people are almost dead 
 with expectation of you." 
 
 This was followed by "A Letter from Hell from Lord 
 
 Ch r Jeffreys to L C B W d." His 
 
 " Confession," hawked about the streets, contained an ex- 
 it What visions he had in the Tower we ing themselves to the Devil for a term of 
 are not exactly told ; but his career does prosperous fortune, and then being claimed 
 strongly remind us of the stories of men sell- according to the bond they had signed. 
 
412 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C& 
 
 aggerated statement of all the bad measures of the latter part 
 of the preceding and of the present reign. Then came his 
 *' Last Will and Testament," commencing, " In the name of 
 Ambition, the only god of our setting and worshipping, toge- 
 ther with Cruelty, Perjury, Pride, Insolence, &c, I, George 
 Jeffreys, being in sound and perfect memory, of high com- 
 missions, quo warrantos, dispensations, pillorizations, flogga- 
 tions, gibitations, barbarity, butchery, &c, do make my last 
 will," <fec. Here is the concluding legacy : — " Item, I order 
 an ell and a half of fine cambric to be cut into handker- 
 chiefs for drying up all the wet eyes at my funeral ; toge- 
 ther with half a pint of burnt claret for all the mourners in 
 the kingdom." 
 
 When he had been some weeks in confinement he received 
 a small barrel, marked " Colchester Oysters," of which, ever 
 since his arrival in London when a boy, he had been particu- 
 larly fond. Seeing it he exclaimed, " Well, I have some 
 friends left still ; " but on opening it, the gift was — a halter ! 
 
 An actual serious petition was received by the Lords of 
 the Council of England from " the widows and fatherless 
 children in the W 7 est," beginning, " We, to the number of a 
 thousand and more widows and fatherless children of the 
 counties of Dorset, Somerset, and Devon ; our dear husbands 
 and tender fathers having been so tyrannously butchered and 
 some transported ; our estates sold from us, and our inherit- 
 ance cut off, by the severe and brutish sentence of George 
 Lord Jeffreys, now we understand in the Tower of London 
 a prisoner," &c. After enumerating . some of his atrocities, 
 and particularly dwelling upon his indecent speech (which I 
 may not copy) to a young lady who asked the life of hei 
 lover convicted before him, the petitioners thus concluded : — 
 " These with many hundred more tyrannical acts are ready 
 to be made appear in the said counties b}* honest and credible 
 persons, and therefore your petitioners desire that the said 
 George Jeffreys, late Lord Chancellor, the vilest of men, 
 may be brought down to the counties aforesaid, where we 
 the good women of the W'est shall be glad to see him, and 
 give him another manner of welcome than he had there three 
 years since." 
 
 Meanwhile, the Great Seal, the Clavis Begni, the emblem of 
 sovereign sway, which had teen thrown into the Thames 
 that it might never reach the Prince of Orange, was found 
 in the net of a fisherman near Lambeth, and was delivered 
 
A.D. 1689. HIS DEATH. 413 
 
 by him to the Lords of the Council, who were resolved to 
 place it in the hands of the founder of the new dynasty ; m and 
 James, after revisiting the capital and enjoying a fleeting 
 moment of popularity, had finally bid adieu to England and 
 was enjoying the munificent hospitality of Louis at St. Ger- 
 maine's. 
 
 The provisional government, in deference to the public 
 voice, issued an order for the more rigorous confine- 16g9 
 ment of the Ex-Chancellor in the Tower, and inti- 
 mated a resolution that he should speedily be brought to trial 
 for his misdeeds ; but amidst the stilling events which rapidly 
 followed, he was allowed quietly to languish out the remainder 
 of his miserable existence. While the elections were pro- 
 ceeding for the Convention Parliament — while the two Houses 
 were struggling respecting the " abdication ' : or " desertion " 
 of the throne — while men were occupied with discussing the 
 " Declaration of Eights " — while preparations were making 
 for the coronation of the new Sovereigns — while curiosity was 
 keenly alive in watching their demeanour — and while alarms 
 were spread by the adherence of Ireland to the exiled King 
 — the national indignation, which at first burst forth so vio- 
 lently against the crimes of Jeffreys, almost entirely subsided, 
 and little desire was evinced to see him punished as he 
 deserved. 
 
 However, considerable sensation was excited by the 
 news that he was no more. He breathed his last in the 
 Tower of London, on the 19th of April, 1689, at thirty-five 
 minutes past four in the morning. Those who take a vague 
 impression of events, without attention to dates, may suppose, 
 from the crowded vicissitudes of his career, that he must have 
 passed his grand climacteric, but he was still only in the 
 forty-first year of his age. Next day many hand-bills, some 
 in prose and some in verse, were hawked through the streets 
 
 m This fishing up of the Great Seal calls inaccuracy and credulity. " A fisherman, 
 
 forth from Sir John Dalrymple the ohserva- between Lambeth and Vauxhall, was drawing 
 
 tion, " that Heaven seemed by this accident a net pretty close to the channel ; and a 
 
 to declare that the laws, the constitution, and great weight, not without some difficulty 
 
 the sovereignty of Great Britain were not to drawn to the shore, which, when taken up, 
 
 depend on the frailty of man. was found to be the Great Seal of England.'" 
 
 "Dum domus JSnea? Capitoli immobile One would suppose from this that " the Seal " 
 
 saxum was as large and heavy as a millstone, or at 
 
 Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus least as the fisb whose name it bears,— whereas 
 
 habebiL" the fisherman could have experienced no 
 
 Bishop Burnet represents that the Great difficulty in pulling home his net containing 
 
 Seal was not fished up till the following it, and could not have supposed that he had 
 
 rammer, his narrative displaying his usual caught more than a good-sized trout. 
 
414 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. 
 
 Chap. CU 
 
 of London, pretending to give an account of his death, and of 
 his character. 11 
 
 We have no accounts that can be implicitly relied upon, 
 either of the manner in which he passed his time during his 
 imprisonment, or of the immediate cause of his death. Some 
 say that he died of a broken heart ; others of repeated attacks 
 of the stone, a disease under which he had long suffered ; 
 others, that he killed himself by brandy ; ° and others, that 
 
 n From the kindness of my friend, Mr. J. 
 Payne Collier, the originals of two of these 
 now lie before me, and I copy them for the 
 amusement of the reader : — 
 
 " A FULL AND TEUE ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE LORD JEFFRIES, 
 
 Late Lord Chancellor of England, 
 
 Who died in the Towek of London, 
 April 18th, 1689. 
 
 Licensed, April \8th.— James Fraser. 
 
 " Many and great have been the expecta- 
 tions of the people about the event of the 
 commitment of the late Lord Chancellor to 
 the Tower; and their wishes have been as 
 various as they have been affected to him. 
 Many (who had entertained a just indignation 
 against him for his late ill conduct of affairs) 
 longed for his being brought to his trial, that 
 he might receive that justice that his irregu- 
 larities that he was committed for were 
 thought to have deserved. But divine Pro- 
 vidence has disappointed them herein by 
 calling him to a higher bar, where he must 
 give a just account of all his actions, and re- 
 ceive the just reward that is due to him for 
 the same, unless he has prevented it by his 
 repentance and God's infinite mercy. 
 
 "As to the manner of his death it was as 
 followeth : He has been very much tor- 
 mented with his old distemper, the stone and 
 rheumatism, almost ever since he has been in 
 the Tower, and there has not been any help 
 wanting that skill or art could invent for the 
 continuation of his life ; but it has been all 
 as ineffectual and vain as the supplications 
 of the distressed were sometimes to him in 
 the time of his power. For about this month 
 last past he has been in a very languishing 
 rendition, still wasting away more and more, 
 in which time he has hardly been in a capa- 
 city to take any thing to sustain nature, un- 
 eea a little sack to revive it when it has been 
 
 almost spent. About three weeks since he 
 had a mind to a bit of salmon, which he had, 
 but could not digest it, nor scarce any thing 
 else, unless a poached egg. So he continued 
 decaying till the 18th of this instant April, 
 1689, when, about half an hour after three in 
 the morning, he died, in the forty-first year 
 of his age ; after having lived to see many 
 ambitious designs disappointed, and their 
 most gracious Majesties King William and 
 Queen Mary seated on the throne : Whom 
 God long preserve ! " 
 
 " An Elegy 
 
 on 
 
 SIR GEORGE JEFFREYS, 
 
 Who died Prisoner in the Tower of 
 London, April 18th, 1689. 
 
 " Poor widows' tears and begging orphans' 
 
 cries 
 Sound forth his life, and sing his obsequies; 
 Then neither praise nor stigmatise his 
 
 name, 
 His life 's indented on the wings of fame ; 
 That fame which will his cruel deeds recall, 
 And make them fresh to generations all. 
 
 " But since Death's issues do belong to God, 
 Who makes such Judges oft a nation's rod, 
 Judge not his soul, for God (and only he) 
 In Christ can set the greatest sinners free." 
 
 EPITAPH. 
 
 "Here England's great Lord Chancellor ia 
 
 laid, 
 Who King and kingdom, Church and State 
 
 be tray' d ; 
 But may his crimes and bloodshed silent 
 
 lie, 
 And ne'er against the English nation cry. 
 
 " At the request of the Widows of the 
 West, whose husbands were hanged 
 without trial by this Lord Chancellor." 
 
 Oldmixon is the most positive as to this, 
 representing the termination to hi* career »3 
 
Chap. CII. HIS CHARACTER. 415 
 
 he was visited by madness, and died like a furious wild beast. 
 The last may be rejected as a fable, invented to please the 
 lovers of the marvellous ; and we may safely believe that he 
 sunk under the combined effects of bodily pain, mental an- 
 guish, and habitual intemperance. It is said that he profited 
 by the spiritual ministrations of Dr. John Scott, a pious 
 divine, but that he never could be induced to express any 
 contrition for his cruelties in the West, — labouring, in his 
 dying hours, under the delusion that he was excused in the 
 sight of God and man by the consideration, " that all the 
 blood he had shed fell short of the King's demand." p 
 
 His body was buried privately in the Tower, where it 
 remained quietly for some years. A warrant was afterwards 
 signed by Queen Mary, while William was on the Continent, 
 directed to the Governor of the Tower, "for his delivering 
 the body of George, late Lord Jeffreys, to his friends and 
 relations, to bury him as they think fit." On the 2nd of 
 November, 1693, the body was disinterred, and buried a 
 second time in a vault under the communion-table of St. 
 Mary, Alderrnanbury. In the year 1810, when the church 
 was repaired, the coffin was inspected by the curious, and 
 was found still fresh, with the name of " Lord Chancellor 
 Jeffreys " inscribed upon it. 
 
 Little remains to be said of him as a statesman or as a 
 Criminal Judge. His acts, which I have detailed, show him 
 in both capacities to deserve reprobation such as no language 
 could adequately express. He cannot, like his predecessors 
 Lord Clarendon and Lord Nottingham, be accused of bigotry, 
 for all religious creeds as well as all political opinions seem to 
 have been really indifferent to him, and in his choice of those 
 which he professed he was guided only by his " desire to 
 climb." Even the strong hatred against Dissenters which he 
 affected when he had changed sides, he could (as in Eosewell's 
 case), to please the government, entirely lay aside or suspend. 
 
 a Roman death. " He chose to save himself M'Pherson. Throughout the whole of this 
 
 from a public death by large draughts of memoir I have derived great assistance from 
 
 brandy, which soon despatched him." — Oldrn. the Life of Judge Jeffreys, by Humphry W. 
 
 Hist. i. 162. Woolwrich. " The Merciful Assize, or a 
 
 P For the last part of Jeffreys's career, see Panegyric on the late Lord Jeffreys," though 
 
 Memoirs of James, Echard, Rapin, Bucking- clever, is so much in the taste of satire, or 
 
 ham, Ralph, Oldmixon, Ellis's Corresp., rather lampoon, that 1 have placed no re* 
 
 North's Life of Guilford, Burnet, Dalrymple, liance upon it. 
 
416 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CII. 
 
 From his daring and resolute character he probably felt a 
 genuine contempt for " a Trimmer," and having no personal 
 antipathy to an opponent who boldly went into extremes like 
 himself, his bile was excited by watching a struggle between 
 conscience and convenience. The revival of the Court of High 
 Commission is the only great unconstitutional measure which 
 he has the credit of having originated ; but there were no 
 measures, however illegal or pernicious, proposed by Charles 
 or James, to the execution of which he did not devotedly and 
 recklessly abandon himself. England, happy in the integrity 
 and mildness of her Judges in the 18th century and in our own 
 times, — during the Stuart reigns was cursed by a succession of 
 ruffians in ermine, who, for the sake of Court favour, violated 
 the principles of law, the precepts of religion, and the dictates 
 of humanity ; — but they were all greatly outstripped by 
 Jeffreys, and though the infamous Scroggs, with whom his 
 name is generally coupled, was next to him, thei e was a long 
 interval between them. q 
 
 As a Civil Judge he was by no means without high qualifi- 
 cations, and in the absence of any motive to do wrong, he was 
 willing to do right. He had a very quick perception, a 
 vigorous and logical understanding, and an impressive elo- 
 quence. He must at the bar have severely felt his imperfect 
 legal education and his want of experience in civil cases/ He 
 was quite young enough, when appointed Chief Justice, by 
 industry to have in a great measure supplied these defects ; 
 but, instead of sitting down to pore over the MS. treatises on 
 Equity practice then in circulation, he spent his afternoons 
 and evenings in intriguing against the Lord Keeper, or in 
 carousing with his boon companions. When he had to decide 
 questions respecting fines and recoveries, executory devises 
 and contingent remainders, he could not resort, as on trials for 
 treason, to the " fashionable doctrine of supporting the King's 
 prerogative in its full extent, and without restriction or limita- 
 tion, — which rendered, to such as espoused it, all that branch of 
 the law called constitutional, extremely easy and simple." 8 
 
 1 The following is his character by Sir 402. 
 
 John M'Pherson, which, in quain* and r We may judge of his reputation as • 
 
 affected terms, expresses much truth : — " A lawyer by Maynard's reply to him, when he 
 
 man of outrageous abilities and violent prin- had, with his usual brutality, told the Ser- 
 
 ciples ; bold and intrepid from a fixed dis- jeant opposed to him in a cause, that from 
 
 regard of the world; profligate from a con- his great age he had forgotten his law. "Yes, 
 
 tempt of virtue ; fair only to those whom he Sir George, I have forgotten more than yoc 
 
 feared; a tyrant to the unfortunate, and a ever learned." 
 
 fawning slave to the great."— M' Pherson, i. 8 Fox's History of James II. c. 2. 
 
Chaf. cii. his CHARACTER. 41? 
 
 Though not learned in his profession, what was wanting in 
 knowledge he made up by positiveness, and he was very 
 imperious with his colleagues as well as with the bar. 
 
 We find a number of his common-law judgments in Shower, 
 Skinner, and 8 Modern ; but law reporters give an inadequate 
 notion of the demeanour of a Chief Justice, as they do not tell 
 us what was furnished to him by others, and they gene- 
 rally suppress what falls from him that is inconsiderate. 
 One of the best specimens of Jeffreys's judicial powers is his 
 argument in the case of the East India Company against 
 Sandys, 1 in which the question arose as to the validity of the 
 charter giving to the plaintiffs the exclusive right of trading 
 to all countries to the east of the Cape of Good Hope. Con- 
 trary to our notions on the subject, he insisted very elaborately 
 and ingeniously that such a charter might be granted by the 
 Crown, so as to create a monopoly, without any confirmation 
 by parliament, and that the defendant by trading within the 
 prescribed limits was liable to the action. Thus he con- 
 cluded : — " The King by his charter makes the plaintiffs as it 
 were his ambassadors to concert peace with the Indians, and 
 Mr. Sandys has complained that he is not one of them. Be- 
 cause the King may pardon every offender, but will not pardon 
 any highwayman now in Newgate, must these gaol-birds 
 therefore think themselves injured in their liberty and pro- 
 perty ? The Company have been at the trouble of discovering 
 places, of erecting forts, of keeping forces, of settling factories, 
 and of making leagues and treaties ; and it would be against 
 natural equity to wrest the benefits from them which they 
 have thus earned. Let there be judgment for the plaintiffs."" 
 
 When quite sober, he was particularly good as a Nisi Prius 
 Judge. His summing up, in what is called " The Lady Ivy's 
 case," x an ejectment between her and the Dean and Chapter 
 of St. Paul's to recover a large estate at Shadwell, is most 
 masterly. The evidence was exceedingly complicated, and he 
 gives a beautiful sketch of the whole, both documentary and 
 parol ; and, without taking the case from the Jury, he makes 
 some admirable observations on certain deeds produced by the 
 Lady Ivy, which led to the conclusion that .they were forged, 
 ; nd to a verdict for the Dean and Chapter. 5, 
 
 1 10 St. Tr. 519. x 10St. Tr. 535. 
 
 u It is curious to think that this is the Com- T Down to this time trials at Nisi Prius 
 
 pany which has become the sovereign of one had not assumed their present shape. The 
 
 hundred million? of subjects. issue being read to the Jury, the evidence 
 
 VOL. IV. 2 E 
 
418 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREY& Chap. CIL 
 
 Considering the systematic form which Equity jurispru- 
 dence had assumed under his two immediate predecessors, 
 Jeffreys must have been very poorly furnished for presiding in 
 Chancery. He had practised little before these Judges, and 
 none of their decisions were yet in print ; so that if he had 
 been so inclined, he had not the opportunity to make himself 
 familiar with the established practice and doctrines of the 
 Court. Roger North says, " he came to the Seal without any 
 concern at the weight of the duty incumbent upon him ; for at 
 the first, being merry over a bottle with some of his old 
 friends, one of them told him, that he would find the business 
 heavy. ' No,' said he, ' I'll make it light.' " z 
 
 Although he must often have betrayed his ignorance, yet 
 with his characteristic boldness and energy he contrived to get 
 through the business without any signal disgrace, and among 
 all the invectives, satires, and lampoons by which his memory 
 is blackened, I find little said against his decrees. He did not 
 promulgate any body of new orders according to recent cus- 
 tom ; but, while he held the Great Seal, he issued separate 
 orders from time to time, some of which were very useful. 
 He first put an end to a very oppressive practice, by which a 
 plaintiff, having filed a frivolous and vexatious bill, might 
 dismiss it on paying merely 20a. costs, and he directed that the 
 defendant should be allowed all the costs he had incurred, to 
 be properly ascertained by an officer of the Court." He then 
 checked the abuse of staying actions at law for the examina- 
 tion of witnesses abroad, by requiring, before a commission to 
 examine them issued, an affidavit specifying the names of the 
 witnesses, and the facts they were expected to prove. b By 
 subsequent orders which he framed, vexatious applications for 
 rehearings were guarded against, and an attempt was made to 
 get rid of what has ever been the opprobrium of the Court, — 
 controversies about settling the minutes of a decree after it has 
 been pronounced. 
 
 Vernon, the Chancery Reporter, has selected and dressed up 
 a considerable number of his decisions, so as to make them 
 appear respectable, and to be occasionally cited as authority at 
 this day. d As might be expected, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys 
 
 was gi^en, and with hardly any speeches case of Mendizabel v. Merchado, the Vice- 
 
 from counsel, all seems to have been left to Chancellor cited and acted upon this order. 
 
 th« Judge. 2 S. & S. 484. 
 
 z Life of Guilford, ii. 120. t» Beames's Orders in Chancery, 265-288. 
 
 " 1 Vernon, 334. This matter Is now regu- c Ib ; d. 
 teted by 4 Anne, c. 15 s. 21 In the Ute <J From p. 334 of voL i. to the end. and 
 
:fcAP. CII. HIS CHARACTER. 419 
 
 was little inclined to defer to fixed rules which stood in his 
 way, saying that " he had as good a right to make precedents 
 to suoceeding times as those who had gone before him had 
 made precedents for him ; e and he showed a disposition to 
 return to the old notiou of the Chancellor's equitable jurisdic- 
 tion by his observation, that "he was to make decrees accord- 
 ing to his conscience, and every case was to stand upon its own 
 bottom." f 
 
 I will give one or two short specimens of his style as an 
 Equity Judge. In Hobley v. Weedon a bill was filed against 
 the devisee of an heir uf the obligor, who had died after a 
 verdict against him on the bond, but before final judgment. 
 Lord Chancellor. " Dismiss the bill. There is no colour of 
 Equity in the case, unless you will have it that the defendant 
 died maliciously, before the day in bank, on purpose, to defeat 
 the plaintiff of his death." g 
 
 In Gale v. Lindo - , A. on a treaty of marriage of his sister 
 with B., let her have a sum of money, that her fortune might 
 appear equal to what B. demanded, and took a bond from her 
 to repay him ; the executor of A. put the bond in suit against 
 the executor of the sister, who survived her husband, and 
 there being no defence at law, the bill was filed for relief. 
 Lord Chancellor. " You admit the husband might have been 
 relieved on a bill brought by him and his wife ; that which 
 was once a fraud will be always so ; and the accident of the 
 woman's surviving the husband will not better the case. 
 Decree the bond to be delivered up, and a perpetual injunction 
 against it." b 
 
 In the case of Sir Basil Firebras v. Brett, in which he granted 
 an injunction against an action to recover money lost at play, 
 he delivered an edifying discourse against gaming ; for, not- 
 withstanding his own practices, he was always most furious in 
 denouncing the vices of others. 1 
 
 In cases of great magnitude, he had the good sense to call hv 
 the assistance of the common-law Judges, and by the advice of 
 Lord Chief Justice Beddingfield, and Lord Chief Baron 
 Atkyns, he decreed that he had jurisdiction to enforce a trust 
 
 from the beginning to p. 90 of vol. ii. In f Earl of Rivers v. Earl of Derby, 2 
 
 Hard wicke's " Tribes of Wales" (110 n.) we Vera. 74. 
 are told that be was considered the author of Si Vera. 400. 
 
 Vernon's Reports ; which could not well be, h Roid. 475. See Kemp v. Coleman, SaJk 
 
 as they come iown to the year 1718, when he 156. 
 had been thirty years in his grave. « 1 Vera. 489. 
 
 Burnet, ii. 236. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CII 
 
 of lands in Ireland, the trustees residing in England ; k and by 
 the advice of Lord Chief Justice Jones, and Lord Chief Baron 
 Montague, that a grant of lands by the Crown might be set 
 aside in Equity on the ground of fraud. 1 " 
 
 The oft repeated compliment to bad Chancellors, " none of 
 his decrees were reversed," is bestowed upon Jeffreys. I find 
 only one appeal brought against a decree of his, and this, 
 notwithstanding suspicion and prejudice, terminated to his 
 honour. When his son was about to be married to the heiress 
 of the late Earl of Pembroke, a suit was instituted to deter- 
 mine whether a large sum of money belonged to her or to her 
 father's creditors. The Chancellor decided in her favour, and 
 the marriage was celebrated. Loud and deep reflections were 
 made upon the Judge's honesty, and a ballad came out with 
 these lines — 
 
 " Old Tyburn must groan, 
 For Jeffreys is known 
 To have perjur'd his conscience to marry his son." 
 
 But he had used the precaution to call in the assistance of the 
 Master of the Rolls, Mr. Justice Lutwich, and Mr. Justice 
 Powell, and though the appeal was heard after the Revolu- 
 tion, the decree was first affirmed by the Lords Commissioners 
 of the Great Seal, and then by the House of Lords." 
 
 The most weighty testimony in his favour is the Speaker 
 Onslow, who, from the tradition of Sir Joseph Jekyll, said, 
 " he had great parts, and made a great Chancellor in the busi- 
 ness of that Court. In mere private matters he was thought 
 an able and upright Judge." But this cannot outweigh the 
 contemporary testimony against him — particularly that of an 
 eye-witness, who, after candidly saying, " When he was in 
 temper, and matters indifferent came before him, he became 
 his seat of justice better than any other I ever saw in his 
 place," adds, " he seemed to lay none of his business to heart, 
 nor care what he did or left undone ; and spent in the Chan- 
 cery Court what time he thought fit to spare. Many times on 
 days of causes at his house the company have waited five 
 hours in a morning, and after eleven he hath come out inflamed 
 and staring as one distracted." ° 
 
 Jle was excusably annoyed by the custom, which seems 
 
 k The Earl of Kildare v. Lustace, 1 fl 2 Vern. 51, 213. 
 
 Vera. 419. ° Life of Lord Guilford, ii. lie. IX 8t 
 
 m AttorneyrGeneral v. Vernon, 1 Vera. Tr. 499. 
 S50. 
 
Chap. CII. HIS CHARACTER. 421 
 
 then to have prevailed, of having on the same side a great 
 host of counsel, who necessarily repeated each other. "It 
 was troublesome, " he said, — " it was impertinent, — he could 
 not bear it." His occasional rudeness to counsel appears in- 
 credible. Mr. \\ allop, a gentleman of eminence at the bar, 
 who defended the famous Richard Baxter, arguing against the 
 opinion expressed by the Court upon the construction of a 
 writing, Jeffreys said, " Mr. \\ allop, I observe you are in all 
 these dirty causes ; and were it not fur you gentlemen of the 
 long robe, who should have more wit and honesty than to 
 support and hold up these factious knaves by the chin, we 
 should not be at the pass we are at." — Mr. Wallop. " My 
 
 Lord, I humbly conceive that " Jeffreys. " You humbly 
 
 conceive ! and I humbly conceive ! Swear him ! Swear him i" 
 Mr. Bradbury, a junior counsel, having ventured to make an 
 observation which was received with courtesy, as it agreed 
 with my Lord's view of the case, was by this encouraged to 
 follow his leader in supporting a new objection thought by his 
 Lordship not to be tenable. —Jeffreys. "Lord, Sir! you must 
 be cackling too. Vse told you your objection was very in- 
 genious ; that must not make you troublesome ; you cannot 
 lay an egg but you must be cackling over it." p 
 
 Attorneys fared much worse. \\ hen they did any thing to 
 displease him, he gave them what he called " a lick with the 
 rough side of his tongue ;" and he " terrified them with Lis 
 face and voice, as if the thunder of the day of judgment broke 
 over their heads." He had to decide upon a Petition against 
 a great City attorney with whom he used to get drunk, and 
 who had given him a great many briefs at Guildhall when 
 still obscure ; and one of the affidavits swore, that when the 
 attorney was threatened with being brought before my Lord 
 Chancellor, he exclaimed, "My Lord Chancellor! I made 
 him !" meaning that he had laid the foundation of his fortune 
 by bringing him early into City business. — Jeffreys. "Well! 
 then will 1 lay my maker by the heels." He thereupon in- 
 stantly ordered a commitment to be made out, and sent off his 
 old friend to the Fleet. q But "he would drink and be merry, 
 kiss and slaver with these boon companions over night, and 
 the next day fall upon them ranting and scolding with insuf- 
 
 P 10 St. Tr. 626. to show that Judges might ahuse their privi" 
 
 1 Life of Guilford, ii. 118. " I was under leges as well as the House of Commons.' — 
 
 the painful necessity of relating this anec- Lord Campbell's Speeches, 133* 
 
 iote in my argument in Stockdale v. Hansard 
 
422 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. CIL 
 
 ferable virulence." r I rather find an inclination to praise him 
 as a civil lawyer, which I can only explain from the desire to 
 assume an air of impartiality, and to make a contrast between 
 his actual bad qualities and the good ones invented for him • ■ 
 but I believe, take him for all in all, that in civil cases, as 
 well as in criminal, he was, in the words of Mr. Justice 
 Foster, " the very worst Judge that ever disgraced West- 
 minster Hall." 
 
 The manner in which Jeffreys, while Chancellor, attacked 
 the independence of the Judges, was most outrageous. The 
 trial of the Seven Bishops coming on, he removed from the 
 office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench Sir Edward Her- 
 bert, who might have been expected to be tolerably subser- 
 vient, to make room for his creature Sir Eobert Wright, so 
 notoriously incompetent from ignorance, stupidity, and im- 
 morality, that the courtly Lord Keeper Guilford had long 
 withstood the wish of Charles II. to make him a puisne Baron 
 of the Exchequer. 
 
 When the question of the dispensing power arose upon 
 issuing the last Declaration of Indulgence, Jeffreys showed a 
 fixed purpose to obtain a unanimous opinion of the Judges in 
 favour of it. He first summoned the reluctant ones to Chif- 
 fmch's lodgings at Whitehall, to talk over the subject with 
 himself and the King, assisted by Sunderland, Rochester, 
 and Godolphin. Baron Nevil tried to escape by saying that 
 he would consider of it, but to a peremptory question declared 
 against the prerogative. Jeffreys, by sending for him to his 
 own house in Duke Street, still tried to bend him,— and find- 
 ing him inflexible forwarded to him his quietus. Sir Thomas 
 Street, a Judge of the Common Pleas, and that most able and 
 upright man, Sir John Powell, a Judge of the Kings Bench, 
 being laboured in the same manner to as little purpose, shared 
 the same fate, — Powell, on account of his high character, 
 having a respite till the end of the term from Jeffreys, who 
 went so far as to say " he was sorry so good a Judge should 
 be turned out for so trifling a cause." 3 He was quite indif- 
 ferent as to the qualifications of their successors if they were 
 
 r Very different from Lord Mansfield's one Rocklesby or Brocklesby, Brocklesby or 
 
 vengeance on Dr. Brocklesby, the famous Rocklesby, and, first, he swears that be is a 
 
 physician, who, having met him in society physician." 
 
 overnight, and being examined before him in 8 These facts came out from an examim- 
 
 Court next morning, chose to be offensively tion of the Judges before a committee of tt* 
 
 familiar. Lord Mansfield, summing vp to House of Commons af nr the Revolution. 
 the Jury — " Gentlemen, the next witness is 
 
Chat. CII. HIS CHARACTER. 423 
 
 obedient to his will, and it became necessary for William to 
 make a sweeping change on the Bench as one of the first acts 
 of the new reign.' 
 
 I have discovered one benevolent opinion of this cruel 
 Chancellor, and, strange to say, it is at variance with that of 
 the humane magistrates who have adorned Westminster Hall 
 in the nineteenth century. "The Prisoners' Counsel Bill" 
 was condemned and opposed by almost all the Judges in the 
 reign of William IV., yet even Jeffreys was struck with the 
 injustice and inequality of the law, which, allowing the ac- 
 cused to defend himself by counsel " for a twopenny trespass," 
 refuses that aid " where life, estate, honour, and all are con- 
 cerned," and lamented its existence while he declared himself 
 bound to adhere to it. u The venerable sages who apprehended 
 such multiplied evils from altering the practice must have 
 been greatly relieved by finding that their objections have 
 proved as unfounded as those which were urged against the 
 abolition of " peine forte et dure f and the alarming innovation, 
 so long resisted, of allowing witnesses for the prisoner to be 
 examined under the sanction of an oath. 
 
 Jeffreys only sat in parliament for a few weeks, and all we 
 know of his performances there is that he bullied his prede- 
 cessor, Lord Keeper Guilford, and that he himself broke down 
 when, by his indiscriminating arrogance, he had set all the 
 Peers of England against him. He was nearly the only Chan- 
 cellor of the seventeenth centurv who was not an author : but 
 we cannot trace to him the publication even of a speech, a 
 pamphlet, or a law tract. 
 
 "We have no very distinct account of him in domestic life. 
 Having lost his first wife, whom he had espoused so gene- 
 rously, within three months froni her death he again entered 
 the married state. The object of his choice was the widow of 
 a Montgomeryshire gentleman, and daughter of Sir Thomas 
 Bludworth, who had been Lord Mayor of London, and for 
 many years one of the City representatives. I am sorry to say 
 there was much scandal about the second Ladv Jeffrevs, and 
 she presented him prematurely with a full-grown child. It is 
 related that he was once disagreeably reminded of this mis- 
 take : when cross-examining a flippant female, he said to her. 
 
 * It was then that Holt was made Chief the Bench, the Courts were presided over by 
 
 Justice of the King's Bench, and Atkyns, the best set of Judges that West_">inst« 
 
 Dolb°n, Gregory, and John Powell, who had Hall has ever seen, 
 
 been removed during the two preceding u 10 St. Tr. 26T. 
 reigns for their honesty, being restored to 
 
424 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap.CH 
 
 " Madam, you are very quick in your answers." " Quick as 1 
 am, Sir George," cried she, " I was not so quick as your 
 lady." x Even after the marriage she is still said to have en- 
 couraged Sir John Trevor, Al.B., and other lovers, while her 
 husband was indulging in his cups. 
 
 " He had a set of banterers for the most part near him, as 
 in old time great men kept fools to make them merry. And 
 these fellows, abusing one another and their betters, were a 
 regale to him." y But there can be no doubt that he circu- 
 lated in good society. He was not only much at Court, but 
 he exchanged visits with the nobility and persons of distinc- 
 tion in different walks of life. In the social circle, being 
 entirely free from hypocrisy and affectation, — from haughti- 
 ness and ill-nature,- laughing at principle, — courting a repu- 
 tation for profligacy, — talking Avith the utmost freedom of all 
 parties and all men, — he disarmed the censure of the world, — ■ 
 and, by the fascination of his manners, while he was present, 
 he threw an oblivion over his vices and his crimes. 
 
 The second Earl of Clarendon, shortly before the landing of 
 the Prince of Orange, having visited him at Bulstrode, his 
 country seat, on some business, which could not be entered 
 upon by the default of absentees, gives us in his diary the fol- 
 lowing account of the manner in which the Chancellor amused 
 nim till the hour for the banquet. " I went in his calash 
 with him. He talked very freely to me of all affairs ; called 
 the Judges a thousand fools and knaves ; that Chief Justice 
 Wright was a beast. 2 He said the King and Queen were to 
 dine with him on Thursday next ; that he had still great hopes 
 the King would be moderate when parliament met. 3 When 
 we came to Dr. Hickman's my Lord was inclined to be merry ; 
 saying he had papists and spies among his own servants, and 
 therefore must be cautions at home." 
 
 From Sir John Eeresby we learn how very pleasant (if not 
 quite decorous) must have been his parties in Duke Street 
 ' I dined with the Lord Chancellor, where the Lord Mayor of 
 
 x The following is an extract from a long You stand as fairly both to have 
 poem published on the occasion, in February, As ever yet did fool or knave. 
 
 , g- 9 . What then, you fool ? Some wives miscarry 
 
 And reckon June for January." 
 
 When old St. George did dragon slay, y Life of Guilford, ii. 117. 
 
 He sav'd a maid from awl fray ; 2 This is the man he had j ust made c^f 
 
 But Una Sir George, whom knaves do brag Jastlce of tfae King . g Bench ^ try ^ Seyen 
 
 Mist of the maid, and caught the dragon. Bishops. 
 
 Marriage and hanging both do go a The parliament about to be called when 
 
 By destiny. Sir Gporge, if so, the Prince of Orange was approaching. 
 
Chap. Cli. HIS CHARACTER. 425 
 
 London was a guest, and some other gentlemen. His Lord- 
 ship having, according to custom, drank deep at dinner, called 
 for one Mountfort, a gentleman of his, who had been a come- 
 dian, an excellent mimic ; and to divert the company, as he 
 was pleased to term it, he made him plead before him in a 
 feigned cause, during which he aped the Judges and all the 
 great lawyers of the age in their tone of voice and in their 
 action and gesture of body, to the very great ridicule, not only 
 of the lawyers, but of the law itself, which to me did not seem 
 altogether so prudent in a man in his lofty station in the law : 
 diverting it certainly was, but prudent in the Lord Chancellor 
 I shall never think it." b 
 
 On one occasion dining in the City with Alderman Dun- 
 comb, the Lord Treasurer and other great Courtiers being of 
 the party, — they worked themselves up to such a pitch of 
 loyalty by bumpers to " Confusion to the Whigs," that they all 
 stripped to their shirts and were about to get upon a sign -post 
 to drink the King's health, — when they were accidentally di- 
 verted from their purpose, — and the Lord Chancellor escaped 
 the fate which befell Sir Charles Sedley, of being indicted for 
 indecently exposing his person in the public streets. But this 
 frolic brought upon him a violent fit of the stone which nearly 
 cost him his life. 
 
 I should have expected that, boldly descending to the level 
 of his company and conscious of great mental power, he would 
 have despised flattery; but it is said that none could be too 
 fulsome for him, and this statement is corroborated by some 
 Dedications to him still extant. The pious author of the 
 "History of Oracles and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests," d 
 after lauding his great virtues and actions, thus proceeds : — 
 " Nor can the unthinking and most malicious of your enemies 
 reproach your Lordship with self-interest in any of your ser- 
 vices, since all the world knows that when they were thought 
 criminal, nay even punishable, — you had nothing left you but 
 
 HONOUR, JUSTICE, and INNOCENCE." 
 
 He was not only famous, like the Baron of Bradwardine, for 
 his chansons a boire, but he had a scientific skill in music, of 
 which we have proof at this day. There being a great contro- 
 versy which of the two rival organ-builders, Smith or Harris, 
 
 b Sir John Reresby, 229. temperance now and then in an evening, it 
 
 c Ibid. 231. The warmest defence I find does not follow that he was drunk on the 
 
 of his sobriety is by Bevil Higgins, in his bench and in council."— Vol. ii. 263. 
 
 review of Burr.et's History, who says, "If d Published in 1668. 
 
 my Lord Jeffres exceeded the bounds of 
 
426 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Csap. CI I 
 
 should be the artist to supply a new organ to the Temple 
 Church, it was agreed that each should send one t«n trial, and 
 that tne Lord Chancellor should decide between them. He 
 decreed for Smith, — the deep and rich tones of whose organ 
 still charm us. Harris's went to Wolverhampton, and is said 
 to be of hardly inferior merit. 6 
 
 There is an anecdote related of him respecting his inter- 
 ference in a contested election, which, however extraordinary, 
 is rather characteristic in some of its circumstances, and I am 
 not at liberty to reject it. The scene is laid at Arundel, 
 where, upon a vacancy in the representation, there was a keen 
 struggle, to which the government attached great importance, 
 — and Jeffreys, who had recently got the Great Seal, was asked 
 to go down to countenance the Tory candidate. He not only 
 did so, but entered the Town Hall while the poll was going 
 forward, and the Mayor, who was the returning officer, having 
 rejected a Tory voter, he rose m a great passion, and contend- 
 ing imperiously that the vote was clearly good, insisted upon 
 its being admitted. The Mayor tried to silence him. — Jeffreys. 
 " I am the Lord Chancellor of this realm." — Mayor. " Impos- 
 sible ! were you the Lord Chancellor, you would know that 
 you have nothing to do here where I alone preside. Officers, 
 turn that fellow out of Court.'" Jeffreys, for once abashed, 
 withdrew to his inn, and, wishing to hush the matter up, in 
 the evening asked the Mayor to sup with him. The virtuous 
 magistrate declining this suspicious honour, the Chancellor 
 boldly went to his house, and, introducing himself, said, " Sir, 
 notwithstanding we are in different interests, I cannot help 
 revering one who so well knows and dares so nobly execute 
 the law ; and though I myself was somewhat degraded thereby, 
 you did but your duty. You, as I have learned, are inde- 
 pendent, but you may have some relation who is not so well 
 provided for ; if you have, let me enjoy the pleasure of pre- 
 senting him with a considerable place in my gift now vacant." 
 This was irresistible : his worship said he had a nephew 
 to whoni the place, which his Lordship so generously offered, 
 would be very suitable, and the appointment was immediately 
 made out and signed.' 
 
 He had never forgiven his father for so obstinately wishing 
 to make him a tradesman, and uttering such sinister prophecies 
 as to the termination of his career, and he had not visited or 
 corresponded with him since the riotous assault upon Acton 
 
 e Granger's Biog. Hist, by Noble, ii. 3«3. f Wool. 310. 
 
Chap. CII. HIS CHARACTER. 427 
 
 when lie was Chief Justice of Chester. 8 Become a Peer, and 
 Lord High Chancellor, he intimated, in the long vacation of 
 1686, an intention of coming to ask his father's blessing ; but 
 the venerable Squire, hurt by past neglect, shocked by the 
 stories of his son which reached his ears, and thinking that 
 George was now actuated merely by a desire to show his great- 
 ness in his native place, harshly refused to receive him, and 
 sent him a blessing, with a prayer for his reformation. 
 
 It is said that, shortly before the coming of the Prince of 
 Orange, the Chancellor was in such high favour that he was 
 about to be raised to an Earldom. Some assert that the patent 
 was prepared and was ready to pass the Great Seal ; and there 
 certainly was extant, in the middle of the last century, a book 
 entitled " Dissertatio Lithologica, auctore Joanne Grcenevelt, 
 Transisalano, Daventriensi M. D. E. Col. Med. Lond.," dedi- 
 cated " Honoratissimo Domino, D. Georgio Comiti Flintensi, 
 Vicecomiti de Wickham, Baroni de Wem, supremo Anglise 
 Cancellario, et serenissimo Jacobo Secundo, Eegi Anglise a 
 secretioribus Consiliis." If the Dutch fleet had met with a 
 storm, he might have lived and died Earl of Flint, and then 
 who can tell whether he would not have appeared in different 
 colours to posterity ? 
 
 He had children by both his wives ; but of these only one 
 son grew up to manhood, and survived him. This was John, 
 the second Lord Jeffreys, who has acquired celebrity only by 
 having rivalled his father in the power of drinking, and for 
 having, when in a state of intoxication, interrupted the funeral 
 of Dryden the poet. He was married, as we have seen, to the 
 daughter of the Earl of Pembroke, but dying in 1703, without 
 male issue, the title of Jeffreys happily became extinct. He 
 soon dissipated large estates, which his father, by such un- 
 justifiable means, had acquired in Shropshire, Buckingham- 
 shire, and Leicestershire. 11 
 
 On the meeting of the Convention Parliament attempts were 
 made to attaint the late Chancellor Jeffreys, — to prevent his 
 heirs from sitting in parliament, — and to charge his estates 
 
 Ante, p. 361. and lived to see him acquire an estate of 
 
 h Nichols's Leicestershire, i. 114. In twelve thousand a year, continued still in 
 
 Yorke's " Life and Character of the late the family, till the whole was spent and 
 
 Lord Chancellor Jeffreys," he observes: — squandered." 
 " He left only one son, and with him ended 
 
 the name, the honour, and the estate; and — " Q ni nimi ° s °btabat honores. 
 
 .... . . • . ., . . , Et nimias poscebat opes, numerosa parabat 
 
 this in so short a time, that some of those Excelsjp u f rris tabulata, unde altior esset 
 
 very servants who had lived with the Chan- Casus, et impulsa; praeceps immane ruin*, 
 tellor when he was hardly worth a shilling, 
 
423 LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS. Chap. C1L 
 
 with, compensation to those whom he had injured ; — but they 
 all failed, and no mark of public censure was set upon his 
 memory beyond excepting him, with some other Judges, from 
 the act of indemnity passed at the commencement of the new 
 reign. 
 
 In his person he was rather above the middle stature, his 
 complexion (before it was bloated by intemperance) inclining 
 to fair, and he was of a comely appearance. There was great 
 animation in his eye, with a twinkle which might breed a sus- 
 picion of insincerity and lurking malice. His brow was com- 
 manding, and he managed it with wonderful effect, whether 
 he wished to terrify or to conciliate. There are many por- 
 traits of him, all, from his marked features, bearing a great 
 resemblance to each other, and, it may be presumed, to the 
 original. The best was by Sir Godfrey Kneller, painted in 
 1687, and hung up in the Inner Temple Hall. Although that 
 society had been eager to show their respect for him when he 
 was made Chancellor, and voted 50/. for a full length of him 
 in his robes, that during dinner the students might be stimu- 
 lated to imitate his conduct in the hope of reaching his eleva- 
 tion, — when misfortune overtook him, the Benchers, expecting 
 a visit from King William and Queen Mary, ordered it to be 
 taken down and hid in a garret. There it remained till the 
 year 1695, when, at " a parliament," the following resolution 
 was passed : — " That Mr. Treasurer do declare to the Lord 
 Jeffreys that, at his Lordship's desire, the House do make 
 a present to his Lordship of his father's picture, now in 
 Mr. Holloway's chambers, who is desired to deliver the same 
 to his Lordship or his order." The son accepted the un- 
 gracious present, and sent it to Acton ; but it was swept 
 away, with other family portraits, to pay his debts. 
 
 An engraving of the father was published soon after his 
 capture at Wapping, which had a prodigious sale, as it repre- 
 sented " the Lord Chancellor taken in disguise and surrounded 
 by the mob." ■ 
 
 i I have in my possession a copy of a are coming the following words: — "Wei 
 
 similar print that was published in Holland, broer Peters wat segje nu;" "By jaen neen 
 
 where the fate of Jeffreys seems to have fult hangen ;" " Denkt opt Westen ;" 
 
 excited almost as much interest as in his own " Heugdu d'Heer Cornish ;" " Denkt opt de 
 
 country. It is entitled " De Lord Cant- Bischoppe ;" " Slaahem de kop in ;" " Denkt- 
 
 zeliek werd gedeguiskert, in Wapping an St. Magdalena Coll." Being thus re- 
 
 gevaugen." Jeffreys is dressed like a Dutch proached with his misdeeds, the words come 
 
 sailor, with several pair of breeches on, sur- ftxro his own mouth, " Scheurd my aar 
 
 rounded and hustled by officers of justice and stukffen. - ' 
 the populace. Out of their mouths severally 
 
Chap. CII. STATE OF THE LAW IN THE REIGN OF JAMES II. 429 
 
 A very few sentences will be sufficient to notice the changes 
 iii the law, and the manner in which it was administered, in 
 the reign of James II. His single parliament sat only for 
 a few weeks, and the only legislative improvement upon our 
 jurisprudence attempted was the enactment, that in case of a 
 son dying intestate and without children after the death of his 
 father, the personal property, instead of all going to the mother, 
 shall be divided in ecpial portions between her and the 
 brothers and sisters of the intestate. k Of judge-made law 
 (which always bears a large proportion to parliamentary" 1 ) 
 there was great abundance, but it was of the worst quality, 
 and, happily, a great part of it was speedily overturned. 
 Jeffreys presiding in the Court of Chancery, and TA right in 
 the King's Bench, their brethren were of the same stamp, — 
 men of learning and independence being chased from the 
 Bench : and not only was the King's power to dispense with 
 laws carried to an extent which, if acquiesced in, would have 
 established a pure despotism, but private rights and private 
 property were becoming insecure, and all those objects were 
 endangered for the preservation of which civil government is 
 established. However, James would subvert the religion as 
 well as the liberties of his subjects, and he was hurled from 
 the throne. 
 
 It is consoling to me to think that, after the irksome task 
 of relating the actions of so many men devoid of political 
 principle, and ready to suggest 01 to support any measures, 
 however arbitrary or mischievous, for the purpose of pro- 
 curing their own advancement, — a brighter prospect now opens, 
 and I see rising before me Chancellors distinguished for their 
 virtues as well as for their talents. To preserve the essential 
 distinctions between right and wrong, to consult the best in- 
 terests of mankind, I am obliged to expose to reprobation 
 such characters as Shaftesbury, Guilford, and Jeffreys ; but 
 it will be far more congenial to my feelings to present for 
 applause and imitation a Somers, a Cowper, a King, and a 
 Hardwicke. 
 
 k 1 Jac. 2, c. 17, s. 7. "in making law, he had ontdote King, 
 
 ** Pemberton, C. J-, ased to boast that, Lords, and Commons." 
 
 SET) OF VOL. iV. 
 
LONDON* : 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFORD STKF.F.T AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
^w^^ 
 
 ^^"» 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 ' This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the 
 ' expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, as 
 provided by the rules of the Library or by special arrange- 
 ment with the Librarian in charge. 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 C28(l14l)M100 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 ~ ■ "i »» 
 
 >• 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 0315022790 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 - 
 
 to 
 
 2.3 
 
 Cair.Dbell 
 
 922.3 
 
 C1551 
 
 v. 4 
 
 Ct55\ 
 V.4 
 
 ■ 
 
 v '. 
 
 ■ 
 
 dHk 
 
 
 \